Max Croiset Movies

A young woman reflects upon the events surrounding the decline and eventual deaths of her parents. Presented in a nonlinear fashion, her tale offers an emotionally wrenching look into the aging process and at the effects it can have on those trying to cope with their inevitable loss. The film begins just after the woman has picked up her recently deceased father's few personal effects from the nursing home she was forced to place him in when his senility became unmanageable for her and her brothers and sisters. She sits at a table playing absently with index cards containing brief chapters from her parents' lives. She remembers how her father had been an attorney general and how painful it was to watch his memory loss progress to the point where he couldn't recognize his own family. When he became incontinent, the family was forced to put him in a home. His wife remains aloof as he is taken away. But then she too is not spared and her health begins to fail. The daughter hires nurse after nurse, but her mother fires each one. She becomes so cantankerous that the siblings get her an apartment where she can be cared for. Unfortunately, her decline is swift and she later dies in the hospital. Her husband, in a brief moment of lucidity demands to attend the funeral and once there is consumed with bereavement. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this award-winning film, Robert Havinck is an attorney who wins his freedom from his unhappy marriage to Lydia when she commits suicide by automobile, conjuring up an auto accident to die in. Unfortunately, she took a complete stranger along with her, and a combination of Robert's having some small feeling of guilt at not having divorced her years before, and curiosity about her motives, leads him to team up with his fifteen-year old daughter Eva to explore Lydia's final days and her motives for suicide. As they investigate, flashbacks tell Lydia's story and reveal that Robert's arid lack of emotional warmth was a major contributing factor in her death. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In a true story beginning in the year before the outbreak of WW II in France, Charlotte (Birgit Doll), a young woman sent to the safety of her grandfathers in the south of France by her Jewish family in Germany, starts to paint pictures that recall some of the terrors she has already known in Germany before leaving. The movie slips back and forth between the memories her paintings conjure up, and her life in France. At first, back in Germany, Charlotte was convinced that her own optimistic, romantic outlook would save her from all harm. But then that self-deception fades a little as her father, a doctor, is picked up by the Gestapo. Even though her father's release is finally secured by Charlotte's step-mother (an opera singer), the situation steadily deteriorates until her parents send her away in the hope that she will be better off in France. Once there, the harsh reality intrudes so much on her life that not even her paintings can afford her any solace. Her despair becomes stronger as the Nazi atrocities begin to multiply, affording her little real hope of survival. An epilogue to the movie tells the audience the fate of the real Charlotte, since the movie ends before that time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Based on a novel written in 1872, this charming tale of a young boy and his dog is leisurely and heart-warming. Nello (David Ladd) and his grandfather Daas (Donald Crisp) manage to make ends meet by delivering milk from the nearby farms to the city of Antwerp. Nello's most deeply felt ambition is to follow in the footsteps of the greatest Flemish artists but his grandfather has little faith in Nello's ability to make a living with brush and canvas. Inevitably, Daas passes away and Nello ekes out a living as they always did, accompanied by his cart dog. One day Nello and his canine friend meet Piet (Theodore Bikel), a reclusive artist whose muse has not been constant of late. The combination of young boy, talented artist, and loyal canine then begins to exert its own chemistry, to everyone's benefit. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This was the first film directed by popular Dutch filmmaker Fons Rademakers and it marked a great beginning to his career. Set at the turn of the 20th century in a small village, the drama centers on the town's doctor. He has been around for a long while and because of his personal ethics, he tends to side with the underprivileged or the common people on local issues. This stance makes him an enemy in the eyes of the town council, and especially so for the burgomeister. Once the doctor's wife dies, his personal fate changes when the council members and their leader gain enough power to act against him. This film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1960, and in that same year it was entered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi