L'ami hollandais, Jef Last & André Gide

To what extent can someone retain his individual integrity in an era of collectivism? Is an independent thinker prepared to sacrifice his personal loyalty to an abstract ideal? Pieter Jan Smit deals with these issues in the light of the friendship that Dutch writer Jef Last (1898-1972) maintained with French author André Gide (1869-1951) in the 1930s. For his film, Smit amply draws on static archive material. Letters, photographs, drawings and newspaper articles evoke an apt portrait of the era. Impressions of historical places and an interview with the odd relative establish a link with the present. With changing perspectives, people like Gerardjan Rijnders, Cas Enklaar and Hans Goedkoop read out several passages. Thus, we learn that the two gentlemen, after a package trip to the Soviet Union, abandon their Leninist-Marxist faith, but do not become estranged.