Olivier Tuinier as Maurits
Blazen tot honderd (Dandelion Game) is a beautiful film of tender and understated emotions about a young boy coping with his mother’s death, told over the course of 4-seasons. If coming-of-age means facing tragedy, then 12-year-old Maurits has a long road to travel in order to cope with the loss.
Olivier Tuinier
Maurits (Olivier Tuinier) denies his mother’s death, even refuses to view the body, and retreats to spending time alone on the flood plains of the river. His intensely sad father, a restorer of paintings, is not able to offer him any solace. In a dramatic moment Maurits tells his father that he wants to be with his mother.
Marie Vinck as Moniek
One day he meets Moniek (Marie Vinck) and in their relationship discovers a needed friendship. But Maurits’ strange outbursts of anger and sorrow frightens Moniek. She is shocked by his pre-occupation with morbidity and the boy begins to take many risks. A dead dog takes him over the top and Moniek never wants to see him again until a fateful winter night on the ice.
Marie Vinck and Olivier Tuinier
Director Peter van Wijk uses the seasons of a Dutch river landscape to convey the heartfelt sorrow of love and loss… of hope and survival.
This was Olivier Tuinier’s poetic and tragic swansong. Holland’s biggest child star quite the business not long after the completion of this film. He briefly resurrected his career in 2006 playing himself, the successful DJ Donnie Don in the film “Afblijven”.
