ONE MAN AND HIS DOG

“I think photos are beautiful…I just couldn't leave them alone,” confesses Kees Kleisdorp at the beginning of Annette Apon's po-faced comedy-drama. But what exactly is his crime? The early death of his father and long-term institutionalization of his near-catatonic mother has left Kees, at 25, all alone and without a typical adult's crucial social skills. More or less conscripted into being a bank teller, Kees goes about acquiring a simulacrum of a personal life, the better to fit in among workmates who gravely doubt his presence of mind. Already an accomplished voyeur ? thanks to a non-existent dog he pretends to walk through his neighborhood by night ? Kees starts stealing details of other peoples' lives. He passes himself off as a world-traveler, mountaineer, tough guy, and devoted boyfriend to a sexy young thing who, of course, doesn't even know he exists. Even when the ruse seems to crumble, Kees' self-created legend only grows in the eyes of his newfound friends. A coolly funny rumination on identity and how a resourceful misfit finds happiness, ONE MAN AND HIS DOG is a Dutch treat of the highest order. (In Dutch with English subtitles.)