René van 't Hof

imdb:
Late 16th century, persecuted protestantism and general dissatisfaction with the Catholic Habsburg rule in the Netherlands lead to large-scale plundering and vandalizing of churches, only harshening the Spanish Inquisition, sparkling the Eighty Years War. Flanders, 1568: Italian minstrel Campanelli tells he followed a Dutchman, the robber of a golden chalice, but failed to prevent him being taken -after banging a country-girl- by the men of a rigid farmer Netelneck, who has him tied-up inside a huge shit-container. After Campanelli frees him, the gold stays inside, and the Dutchman is killed, but the minstrel turns to offer the paying audience a happier version. Seven years later, he scares the Dutchman’s posthumous son into bringing him food and convinces the kid he can fly, like his dad, who is on a grand ship, but fails to drag the gold out and is blinded and chased by Netelneck.Read More »

Quote:
A man performs infectious playlets for his surroundings.

A court-jester without a king. The protagonist in the film is an actor (René van het Hof) who is acting his life. He is a nuisance, but only for those who have had enough of his play acting or who are ashamed to be around this clown. His wife breaks up with him because she just can’t tolerate the man any more and he seems to accept that in an apparently matter-of-fact way. He leaves the city for a cottage in the countryside. He soon has a new audience. The woman next door and her daughter are curious to make his acquaintance and are at once enthusiastic about the ingenious simplicity of the shows by this nuisance who is not yet a nuisance to them, but a welcome change in there all-too-ordinary life. Read More »