06/07/2023 - The Dutch director’s short is a satirical view of “self-help” as well as an examination of male insecurity and the need to grow up

Dutch director Joris Tobé’s short Frantic Attempts sees Matthias (Robbert Bleij) reluctantly attend a weekend course named “My Value on Earth”. But whilst bristling at the thought of “alternative therapy”, he also discovers that he’s due to become a father. Just how will he find the answers he seeks? While Tobé’s film is a satirical view of “self-help”, it is also an examination of male insecurity and facing the need to grow up, all wrapped up in a dryly comedic piece of work that has already won a Dutch Film Critics’ Award for Best Graduation Film.

We caught up with Tobé – a graduate of the Utrecht Filmschool in the Netherlands – as he prepared for his debut short to screen as part of EFP’s Future Frames during Karlovy Vary.

Cineuropa: Frantic Attempts adopts a satirical view of “self-help” culture and conveys a certain sense of the stubbornness of masculinity. How conscious were you of trying to balance different elements to tell the story?
Joris Tobé: One in four young adults in my country is labelled as “psychologically unhealthy”, so this is not something to make fun of. There is a very serious reason why a lot of people attend these kinds of weekends. But it is just very, very easy to ridicule a weekend like this. I wanted to take my characters and make their stories as serious as possible. Of course, the subject has a lot of humour in it, and I knew this would be a film where you could have a good laugh, but the real struggles of this lost soul, his own suspicion towards such a weekend and the awkward situations he will find himself in are enough for drama, humour and tragedy – all three. Making a total satire out of this film would have been a waste.

What was the inspiration behind the story?
I drew my inspiration from my own participation in a “coaching trajectory”. I was 19 years old, and suffered from panic attacks and a lot of general anxiety. I had no clue how to approach adulthood. More and more, I saw the bizarreness of the place I was in. It may have helped for some people, but I saw myself navel-gazing more and more, which did not help at all with my problems. After a while, I started to realise the dynamics of it all. A generation with infinite possibilities in a wealthy Western country feels lost because of the emptiness of our capitalistic society, where we are taught that if you want something – to be happy, have a car, a house, a holiday or an answer – you have to work for it.

There’s this idea that if you pay enough money for it and look really, really, really deep inside yourself, you will deserve freedom and the end of suffering. I don’t know how life works, but that can’t be it.

Do you think it’s more difficult to create a comedy, as opposed to a drama?
It becomes a lot harder when you try to force comedy into a film. I met a producer once while I was still at school, and he gave me a synopsis for a children’s series for four-year-olds. He asked me, “Can you change this synopsis and add a few jokes?” Well, that’s not how comedy works. I actually think comedy comes from drama and tragedy, and an audience who recognises or engages with what is happening will laugh as a form of relief. It is only when you write your script as a complete drama, where the characters (and actors) take themselves deadly seriously, that humour can arise.

Tell us about casting Robbert Bleij in the lead.
I’d seen Robbert playing a lot of comic characters in the Netherlands. And although he is really (and I mean really) funny, I also saw this endearing and touching person in him. I knew I had to tone down the comedy a bit because he is a smart man and knows what is funny about a scene. But if an actor knows what is funny, they are not going to play the drama of the character, and the audience will sense that. So, in rehearsals as well as on set, I invented all kinds of tricks with him to let him play the drama of the character to the fullest. I think in the end, he did a fantastic job. He has such an interesting countenance to look at, and the protagonist’s 180-degree change in the film shows the variety of characters he can play.