Feature film
The Girl with the Red Hair
Het meisje met het rode haar
Ben Verbong · 1981
Synopsis
Haarlem under the Occupation. Hannie Schaft, a law student about to sit her final exams, abandons her studies to join a resistance group, which receives her poorly: she is nothing like a killer. She is first given courier work. One day, during a demonstration, shots are fired at her and a boy falls before her eyes; she then decides to do more, learns to shoot and goes after collaborators, with Hugo, who becomes her lover.
Context
The screenplay follows the book that Theun de Vries had devoted in 1956 to this resistance fighter. The writer, a former communist, stressed the convictions of his subject; the film sets aside any reference to an ideology, and critics have reproached it for thereby depriving its character of motive. Theo van de Sande, on camera, had the colours filtered at development to give the image its dismal grey; the music is by Nicola Piovani. The negative, long thought destroyed, was found in 2025 and the film restored the following year.
Who it is for
One hundred and ten minutes in Dutch. It is worth knowing that this story is on the school curriculum in the country and that the film relies on what viewers already know of it.
Prizes and reception
Dutch critics' prize for best film of 1981 and selection at Berlin; five hundred and eighty thousand viewers at home, eight hundred thousand elsewhere.