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Johan de Bakker is a first-rate baker, meticulous in his trade and exacting in his recreational pursuits which include balancing eggs, building towers of pebbles by the river and waiting stoically in the town square for his daily bus to arrive. Illiterate and hardly exacting in his social skills, Johan is a 35-year-old child and the enigmatic hero of this charming Dutch comedy. His slightly more worldly friends decide to play Cyrano, and their ghostwritten love letters on his behalf pro voke a woman's visit 'from foreign climes'. |
Set in a tiny village in the north of Holland, Egg takes its eccentric characters at face value, and Israeli-born writer-director Danniel Danmet's cheerfully dead-pan approach is reminiscent of early Jacques Tati, with a touch of Jim Jarmusch for good measure. Skilfully introducing the villagers through their mundane routines, Danniel weaves a whimsical fable based in limited realities where more than one outcome is possible.
With a talented cast, Egg succeeds as an offbeat comedy through understatement and authentic charm. Says Danniel of his film 'I want to show that people can get along, and that sincerity and warmth are more important than other intellectual considerations when starting out in a new relationship'.