Arnon Grunberg

Happy

Demons

On Saturday evening I saw the movie “The Woman in the Fifth” by Pawel Pawlikowski. (I interviewed Mr. Pawlikowksi a couple of years ago for a Dutch television program.)
The audience at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas wasn’t completely happy with the rather enigmatic ending of the movie. I guess that we are used to movies where everything is tidied up at the end, so we can go home with the reassuring knowledge that the world is a place that makes sense.
“The Woman in the Fifth” is not a perfect movie, I’m not even sure if it strives to be a perfect movie. But Pawel Pawlikowski and Ethan Hawke have something to say about a man who is hunted by demons. That we don’t get to know these demons very intimately doesn’t matter. After all, it’s the demons that we don’t know that we must fear.

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