Helium

A world-weary gangster boss is forced to retreat to a wintry, deserted Dutch island. Here, he feels a peace and quiet he has never known before. It deeply affects him. An atmospheric, almost contemplative crime film, with more thinking and looking than shooting.

Criminal Frans Weeling is a cold, blunt man. He bites off his sentences, never using a word more than necessary. So he doesn't engage much in chit-chat with his henchmen John and Elias, who accompany him to a deserted holiday park on a Dutch island, where he is hiding out from vengeful Nigerian rivals.They sigh, remain silent. Then, somewhere between a visit to an old lighthouse and a tropical swimming pool, Frans realises how little the skin he is so desperately trying to save is worth. Back in the Amsterdam underworld, when confronted by a ruthless power struggle, he is unable to act.Helium is a portrait of a man who slowly erases himself - a man who also realises that maybe there isn't even that much to rub out. This is an account of an existential crisis in someone whose life consists mainly of things such as “put a bullet through his head” and “a load of bother for a few hundred grand”. A sombre debut with a great lead role for Hans Dagelet. (Catalogue International Film Festival Rotterdam)