By John Bryan for Time Out Amsterdam
I am sitting in Cafe Dante waiting for the man. He'll be another 15 minutes as he's picking up his daughter Lola from school. Fair enough. Even rock stars have parental duties. When Herman Brood finally arrives, dressed in a pea-green jacket, leopard-skin trousers, and winkle-pickers, Lola is by his side asking for money to buy some sweets.
We get down to business. "I don't feel like talking much" are his first words. Not the best way to start, but we all have our off days. Today Brood is very off - off in his own world. He takes out note pad and pen and sketches at a furious rate as I try to draw a word or two out of him. I ask about the Rock and Roll Junkie, a rock and roll movie cum documentary about his life. Herman wants to play Travel Scrabble instead. So we sit making up words in Dutch and English. With his first go he gets an "x", an "s", and an "e". No prizes for guessing.
I score 22, Brood gets a cool 32. I try to steer the subject back to the film. Is he happy with the title? The word "junkie?" Brood has been in the spotlight for years, his excesses well documented. "Yeah, the word junkie has to be expanded on," he replies. I wait for more. He has another look at the board. Rock and Roll Junkie is a film that won't inform the ardent Brood fan of anything new, but will interest anyone who appreciates the man's talents and his own special humour. The film was conceived by Frank van der Sterre, a longtime friend who has filmed concerts and important events in Brood's career over the last 20 years. Together with producer Ton van der Lee, cameraman Eugene van den Bosch, and journalist Jan Eilander, Van der Sterre followed Brood for nearly a year, filming anything and everything. It was then Menno Boerema's unenviable task to edit 30 hours of material down to 90 minutes, combining the documentary aspect with archive footage from Van der Sterre's earlier work.
The film concentrates on four main areas of Brood's life: as private man, musician, artist, and as seen by the key figures in his life, past and present. Musical footage is interspersed with candid interviews. The trip down memory lane scales the highest peaks and plumbs the lowest troughs. His mother recollects his earliest performance: 6-year-old Herman dancing naked in front of the family, deep in a trance, to "Peer Gynt." Pictures of his first tentative, youthful steps on stage lead into a present-day concert, with Brood giving it his all in Rotterdam's Nighttown. The personal guided tour of his chequered history includes highlights such as his incarceration for stealing computers, his wanderings around town socializing with tramps, and selling his paintings on the streets when he's a bit short.
It's a portrait of a true showman - Brood lets it all hang out on film. I pushed him on the point of why he now wished to show the private side of himself after being public property for so long. "There are certain aspects of my private life that are very hard to show. For example you're not permitted to film in casinos and brothels." A classic answer, given, like so many in the film, with a hint of a smile and a gleam in the eye. Herman Brood knows how to play games, how to manipulate the media.
What strikes you about the film is its honesty, in content and style. But it follows the same path as previous films of the same ilk in not living up to its potential. What should have been a film reflecting the man's notoriety drives sedately down the middle of the road. It should have zigzagged drunkenly across both lanes with a police tail. Brood deserves better. He's a natural rock 'n' roller, addicted to life. In the end it was I who was lost for words, and he whipped my arse at Scrabble.
Rock and Roll Junkie premiered 27 September at Cinema International and Criterion. A book of the same name accompanies the film and Liefsbloodbad, a collection of Brood's poetry, is published by Uiteverij De Buurvrouw.
