Twin Sisters (2002 film)

2002 film

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Twin Sisters

Film poster

Directed by| Ben Sombogaart
Written by| Marieke van der Pol
Based on| The Twins
by Tessa de Loo
Produced by|

* Hanneke Niens
* Anton Smit
* Madelon Veldhuizen

Starring|

* Thekla Reuten
* Nadja Uhl
* Ellen Vogel
* Gudrun Okras

Cinematography| Piotr Kukla
Edited by| Herman P. Koerts
Music by| Fons Merkies

Production
companies

* IDTV Film
* Chios Media
* Samsa Film
* NCRV Televisie

Distributed by| RCV Film Distribution[1]

Release date

* 12 December 2002 (2002-12-12) (Netherlands)

Running time

| 137 minutes
Countries|

* Netherlands
* Luxembourg

Languages|

* Dutch
* German

Box office| $5,145,363[2]

Twin Sisters (Dutch: De Tweeling) is a 2002 Dutch film, directed by Ben Sombogaart, based on the novel The Twins by Tessa de Loo, with a screenplay by Dutch actress and writer Marieke van der Pol [nl]. The film stars Thekla Reuten, Nadja Uhl, Ellen Vogel and Gudrun Okras.[3]

## Plot

[edit]

The film tells the story of twin German sisters Lotte (Thekla Reuten) and Anna (Nadja Uhl), who are separated when they are six. After the deaths of their parents, they are "divided" between quarreling distant relatives, one being raised in the Netherlands and the other in Germany. Lotte grows up in a loving Jewish middle-class intellectual family in the Netherlands and Anna is raised in virtual servitude by a poor Catholic peasant family in a backward area where she is abused by her uncle.

The two girls seek to keep in contact, but Anna's family lacks Lotte's address, and Lotte's new family fails to mail her letters for fear that the brutal farmers will claim her as well. The cataclysmic events of World War II sweep them even further apart. Lotte falls in love with a young Jewish man whom the Nazis eventually catch while they are in Amsterdam together and sent to an extermination camp where he is murdered. Anna falls in love and marries a young Wehrmacht soldier who joins the Waffen SS and is killed in the last days of the war. Although the girls find each other just before the outbreak of the war, Anna's attempt to reunite with Lotte in its aftermath is thwarted by Lotte's bitter discovery that Anna's husband had been part of Nazism which killed her fiancé in Auschwitz.

Only in old age, when they meet again at a spa, do they reconcile and put aside their divergent lives and reclaim the tender sibling feeling of her childhood. They get lost in a woods and Anna then dies. The two girls/women are each played by three different actors from the Netherlands and Germany.

## Cast

[edit]

* Ellen Vogel as old Lotte
* Thekla Reuten as young Lotte
* Gudrun Okras as old Anna
* Nadja Uhl as young Anna
* Julia Koopmans as little Lotte
* Sina Richardt as little Anna
* Jeroen Spitzenberger as David
* Betty Schuurman as the twins' mother
* Jaap Spijkers [nl] as the twins' father

## Reception

[edit]

### Box office

[edit]

The film received commercial release on 6 May 2005, and grossed $1,207 in the opening weekend in one theater (US). It went on to gross $1,563 in the US and $5,143,800 in other markets for a worldwide total of $5,145,363.[2]

### Critical response

[edit]

Twin Sisters has an approval rating of 69% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 13 reviews, and an average rating of 6.92/10.[4]

In Israel, some critics objected to the film as "creating a moral equation between the killers and their victims". Still, it was shown successfully for several months in cinemas all over Israel. As the Jewish Chronicle was later to remark,

> A thought-provoking film, raises big questions about responsibility for the Holocaust and what ordinary individuals do when faced with extraordinary evil.

Miramax Films had also acquired the United States distribution rights to Twin Sisters and the film was given a limited US theatrical release in 2005.

### Awards and nominations

[edit]

The film was a 76th Academy Awards nominee for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 2003.

It also won the Golden Calf for Best Feature Film.[5]

## See also

[edit]

* List of Dutch submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
* List of submissions to the 76th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Film #19299: Twin Sisters". Lumiere. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
2. ^ a b "Twin Sisters 2004 Re-release".
3. ^ Kleijer, Pauline (17 May 2003). "De Tweeling". Filmjaarboek 2002. By Hans Beerekamp. International Theatre & Film books. p. 196\. ISBN 9789064036316.
4. ^ "Twin Sisters (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes.
5. ^ "De tweeling ⋆ Nederlands Film Festival".

## External links

[edit]

* Official website
* Twin Sisters at IMDb
* Movie stills

Awards

Preceded by

Black Book

|  Golden Calf for Best Feature Film
2003  | Succeeded by

Simon

* v
* t
* e

Golden Calf for Best Feature Film

* The Mark of the Beast (1981)
* A Question of Silence (1982)
* Hans: Life Before Death (1983)
* The Illusionist (1984)
* Flesh and Blood (1985)
* Abel (1986)
* Bygones (1987)
* The Vanishing (1988)
* Secret Wedding (1989)
* Evenings (1990)
* Prospero's Books (1991)
* Kyodai Makes the Big Time (1992)
* The Little Blonde Death (1993)
* 1000 Roses (1994)
* Little Sister (1995)
* Long Live the Queen (1996)
* Character (1997)
* Felice...Felice... (1998)
* The Flying Liftboy (1999)
* Leak (2000)
* Nynke (2001)
* Miss Minoes (2002)
* Twin Sisters (2003)
* Simon (2004)
* Paradise Now (2005)
* Black Book (2006)
* Crusade in Jeans (2007)
* Love Is All (2008)
* Nothing Personal (2009)
* Joy (2010)
* Black Butterflies (2011)
* The Girl and Death (2012)
* Borgman (2013)
* How to Avoid Everything (2014)
* Son of Mine (2015)
* The Paradise Suite (2016)
* Brimstone (2017)
* The Resistance Banker (2018)
* Dirty God (2019)
* Buladó (2020)
* The Judgement (2021)
* Oink (2022)
* Sweet Dreams (2023)
* Memory Lane (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Dutch submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

* The Village on the River (1959)
* Like Two Drops of Water (1963)
* The Human Dutch (1964)
* Monsieur Hawarden (1969)
* Mira (1971)
* Turkish Delight (1973)
* Help! The Doctor Is Drowning (1974)
* Dr. Pulder Sows Poppies (1975)
* Max Havelaar (1976)
* Soldier of Orange (1977)
* Pastorale 1943 (1978)
* A Woman Like Eve (1979)
* In for Treatment (1980)
* Come-Back! (1981)
* The Cool Lakes of Death (1982)
* The Fourth Man (1983)
* Army Brats (1984)
* The Dream (1985)
* The Assault (1986)
* Count Your Blessings (1987)
* The Vanishing (1988)
* Polonaise (1989)
* Evenings (1990)
* Eline Vere (1991)
* The Northerners (1992)
* The Little Blonde Death (1993)
* 06 (1994)
* Antonia's Line (1995)
* Long Live the Queen (1996)
* Character (1997)
* The Polish Bride (1998)
* Scratches in the Table (1999)
* Little Crumb (2000)
* The Moving True Story of a Woman Ahead of Her Time (2001)
* Zus & Zo (2002)
* Twin Sisters (2003)
* Simon (2004)
* Bluebird (2005)
* Black Book (2006)
* Duska (2007)
* Dunya and Desi (2008)
* Winter in Wartime (2009)
* Tirza (2010)
* Sonny Boy (2011)
* Kauwboy (2012)
* Borgman (2013)
* Accused (2014)
* The Paradise Suite (2015)
* Tonio (2016)
* Layla M. (2017)
* The Resistance Banker (2018)
* Instinct (2019)
* Buladó (2020)
* Do Not Hesitate (2021)
* Narcosis (2022)
* Sweet Dreams (2023)
* Memory Lane (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Ben Sombogaart

* The Pocket-knife (1992)
* The Boy Who Stopped Talking (1996)
* Mijn Franse tante Gazeuse (1997)
* The Flying Liftboy (1998)
* Twin Sisters (2002)
* Tow Truck Pluck (2004)
* Crusade in Jeans (2006)
* Bride Flight (2008)
* The Storm (2009)
* Isabelle (2011)
* In My Father's Garden (2016)
* Rafaël (2018)
* My Best Friend Anne Frank (2021)

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