Borgman

This nightmarish psychodrama from the Netherlands is part horror film and part dark fable. The Borgman of the title is both a devil and a perverse guardian angel in the guise of a homeless man (Jan Bijvoet)—living in an underground cave in the forest—who emerges to stir the poison in the lives of a middle-class family inhabiting a modern glass-and-steel home in the woods. With the help of an ominous network of shadowy associates, Borgman manipulates the members of the family to create tensions within. Bystanders are even murdered to tighten the conspiratorial web, and some kind of surgery is performed on the three children of the family that turns them into loyal followers. What starts out as a strange tale of demented social retribution takes a left turn into ambiguous malevolence with hints of a supernatural backstory. Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam's Borgman is a black-hearted social satire that attacks affluence and complacency with an unforgiving and inexplicable brutality—a film more disturbing than scary, especially since motivations remain opaque here. Likely to be too alienating for many viewers, but possibly appealing to those who appreciate challenging cinema, this is a strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)