De Oost (The East) directed by Jim Taihattu

In De Oost, the protagonist Johan de Vries volunteers to fight in the Dutch-Indonesian army against Indonesian nationalists during the Indonesian war of independence. This war took place from 1945 until 1949. After WWII, Indonesia proclaimed independence but the Netherlands did not want to let go of their former colony, so they sent troops to fight nationalist guerrilla fighters, supposedly to help the local population. Johan soon discovers that the reality is different.

De Oost starts in 1946 when Johan de Vries arrives on Java and is stationed at Semarang. De Vries comes into the good graces of the infamous commander Raymond Westerling who selects De Vries for a special mission to the island of Celebes, now Sulawesi, to exterminate Indonesian guerrilla fighters. De Vries becomes involved in torturing prisoners and in executions. During the course of the military campaign, De Vries starts questioning his involvement in the war because the supposed guerilla fighters are killed without any trial or investigation.

De Vries also has a WWII  history, connected to his father, that presents an additional layer to the film: While he tells fellow soldiers that his family died in WWII, his father is actually serving a prison sentence since he was a prominent member of the Dutch National Socialists (NSB) during the war and was responsible for the deportation and death of Jews. This additional layer raises the question of intergenerational guilt and perpetrator trauma, and is presented in the form of flashbacks and flashforwards, which show the traumatized de Vries having trouble integrating into Dutch society after his return from Indonesia. The film ends with de Vries visiting Westerling, who now works as an opera singer, at one of his performances and shooting Westerling and then himself.

De Oost is of interest for perpetrator studies as it portrays Dutch colonial violence and Dutch perpetratorship during the Indonesian war of independence. This is a highly relevant topic currently in the Dutch cultural arena, as exemplified by the 2020 excuses from the king for Dutch excessive violence during the Indonesian war of independence and the 2022 research report by KITLV, NIMH and NIOD on the same topic. However, limited representations of this period exist in the Netherlands. De Oost was a very controversial film: veterans argued that it was unrepresentative, as according to them the Dutch were not as violent as the movie portrays. Additionally, the director hopes to educate the Dutch public about the period with his, which is why the film is accompanied by an educational programme that highlights the historical background and the backstories of the characters. This programme can be found at dewereldvandeoost.nl. Furthermore, director Jim Taihattu was inspired by the comic Rampokan, which also follows the perspective of a Dutch soldier, who, differently than Johan de Vries, gets involved in the Indonesian resistance. De Oost thus can be seen as an example of the complex and contested Dutch cultural memory of perpetratorship during the Indonesian war of Independence.

Author of this entry: Dewi Kopp

Taihuttu, Jim, director. De Oost. New Amsterdam Film, 2020. 2hr., 20 min.