“Nervous, old traumas triggered, and alarmed, I did what I felt I needed to do.”
The Treatment (De Behandling) is a Flemish language cinema directed by Hans Herbots. It’s a tormenting, edgy fare and deceitfully styled with all its mood of Nordic noir flavour in the cachet of dark, discontented complex crime drama. The story is adopted from British author Mo Hayder’s novel, which is quite intense and restrained. You tend to sense the complexity in-between an old-fashioned whodunit Agatha Christie and the emergence of themes that immerse themselves in sheer and downright wickedness on a level that goes beyond that of a mere gore flick.
This intricate and tenacious theme of sexual violence and paedophilia spirals a raw blend to prodigious effect. The story’s brilliance generates a spellbinding tale of undoubted propensity and inner turmoil in the lines with Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners; Bong Jun Hoo’s Korean film Memories of Murder and David Fincher’s Seven. The beauty is this narrative combines the plot of two books from the same author- The Treatment and Birdman
The film has all the appetite of being virtually sombre. As an audience, you feel heavy in a pit of your intestinal twists and interlace the melancholic mystery around your mild nerves. The screenplay of Carl Joos is rather exciting. Much before envisaging the idea of making this movie- Joos’s meeting the producer Peter Bouckaert, who’s suggestion to choose the book into a film script- Joos knew from the word go of adopting from famous British crime writer Mo Hayder. “Her books are not only well-crafted and very intelligent but on an emotional level, they get to me.” He mentions.
Combining with the director Hans Herbots is another memorable part of this movie. The story design is the complexities of crime chronicles, and relationships through the several plot lines have been audacious. “If you get that kind of proposal, pick any book you’re not going to pick an easy one. You want something to chew on.” The director and screenwriter were clear from the initial reading of the novel. They convey it so well that the musings of what’s rooted in childhood abuse, victimization, and fear that the sufferer undergoes are frightening. In reality, it provokes the ability of the adversary. The levels of social danger and humiliation face around your neighbourhood. The imagination gazes underneath the surface too long and sinister, embracing the dark burn down. Needless, the officers forced to relive the cases day in and day out.
Nick Cafmeyer, (Geert Van Rampelberg) the tormented cop is the centrefold of the story. Living with his parents’ home, plagued by the disturbing past and, through nightmares of his unpleasant boyhood years ago. He witnesses his brother abducted by a paedophile twenty years back, never to see him again. Into the present-day Nick is a homicide cop, probing crime cases remind him of his brother and hoping that his brother Bjorn might well return home one day.
In a horrid paedophile, the case hit close to home. Nick leads the investigation and consigns his interest to investigate a brutal attack on a family, resulting in their son’s abduction. The case reminisces Nick’s traumatic infantile of his abducted brother Bjorg. The flashbacks echo of his brother, the metaphor of disappearance and hallucination is superbly captured in the camera. Significantly, the frequent appearance scenes of the railway track cutting through the countryside and his villa. The train charging illustrates that Nick and his insistent guilt over his hopelessness to prevent the crime create chromatic motion. The images infer a profound effect and interpret the distressing impact of childhood guilt is emotionally quaking.
The axis centre of the crime is a clear-cut ludicrous and monstrous villain named Troll. He executes tremendous shock, and vexing shreds of evidence in the form of images and sexual dismemberment bodies of under-aged victims is a clear expression of absolute disgust seen on screen. The Treatment redirects its crimes through Troll’s mind, as healing for impotence-induce sadism and an act of revenge against female hormones. However, the screenplay is the source of a novel written by a woman and the film directed by a man, bringing a curious and eccentric charge to the film’s sexual politics.
The unexpected turn during new suspicion untangles agony and Nick’s motivations seize impossible to understand. The fear outstretches primitive vibrations shiver in the dark. It’s a raw power surge both consequence and remorse. Hans Herbots’s approach of making the audience respond use niggling anxieties. The film’s origins conceal your wounds out of fear and shame. The inner darkness screams out in fright, and the testimony of children is deconstructed as symptoms of cultural hysteria.
Shove away your night after watching The Treatment. It is the kind of film that troughs every ounce of moral faith. The film is outstandingly made- for example, that ear sharp sound design, make raucous with the ooze of water in the pool. The cinematic profuse is neatly dispensed both through the actors and through lighting and shots. Everything weighed down with what the characters are experiencing. Van Rampelberg conveys a merited strength to his character Nick. He offers multi-layered performance through the multitude of shades which is brilliant contrast and not to underestimate the rare tears of man, as far as a sign of never losing hope, out of options & more, has nothing to lose.
Director Herbots’s stealthy and bellicose tension is a rife and forefront of every shot, assisted by portentous music that senses the tormenting trends and touches the scars unhealed. There is no need to say how it’s underdone and through each outrageous factor of impulse and epitome, the result is spirited with a brilliant crew in an unsettling fare. Frankly, this is the ensuing crime masterpiece sticks with the audience for days subsequently.
Film Crew
Starring: Geert Van Rampelberg; Ina Geerts, Johan van Assche; Laura Verlinden, Dominique Van Malder & Roel Swanenberg.
Based on the novel ‘The Treatment’ by Mo Hayder.
Screenplay by Carl Joos.
Directed by Hans Herbots.
Edited by Philippe Ravoet.
Music by Kieran Klaassen; Melcher Meirmans & Chrisnanne Wiegel.
Cinematography: Frank Van Den Eeden.
Produced by Peter Bouckaert; Eyeworks Film & TV Drama.
