Kees Pruis

“Ciske de Rat” belongs to the Dickensean “little man’s hard life” model and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure its place in the history of great cinema.

When Joy, the daughter of the actress Gloria Grey, is six years old, her mother realises that the theatrical life is contaminating the child. She confides in Mark Halliday, an actor who has helped her in the past and who proposes marriage. She tells him that she is still married and - in a series of flash-backs - relates her story.