Te land, ter zee en in de lucht (On Land, at Sea and in the Air)

Director: Paul Driessen
Release Date: 1980
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

In this film Paul Driessen experiments with the split screen for the first time.

Here we see three narrow frames: the left frame (Land) depicting a sleeping man, the middle one (Air) a bird, and the right one (Sea) a couple on a boat on the ocean. The story involves several themes explored in all three frames, which at times interact but only come together in the end

Like many of Paul Driessen’s shorts ‘Te land ter zee en in de lucht’ involves morbid humor, including a running gag of an ark sinking several times. The film uses no dialogue and no music, only sound effects with very effective results.

Driessen would take the split screen technique to the max in ‘The End of the World in Four Seasons’ (1995), but the genius of ‘Te land, ter zee en in de lucht’ would only be topped by his melancholy film ‘The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg’ from 2000.

Watch ‘Te land, ter zee en in de lucht’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Te land, ter zee en in de lucht’ is available on the DVD ‘The Dutch Films of Paul Driessen’