‘Morlang’ paints a scattered picture

Dutch filmmaker Tjebbo Penning’s drama “Morlang� aspires to tragedy with an impulse toward being a thriller, but is too slight to achieve the former and never really acts upon the latter. Loosely based on an actual incident in the Netherlands known as the “Van Bemmelen Affair,� Penning has set the film in Holland and Ireland with a predominantly English-speaking cast, presumably to make it more commercial.

Paul Freeman (perhaps best remembered as Belloq in “Raiders of the Lost Ark�) is Julius Morlang, a respected painter enjoying a successful period in his career. Morlang is introduced frolicking with his younger Irish lover, Ann (Susan Lynch), a translator of books from Italian to English.

The film moves back and forth in time, from Morlang in his current life with Ann to two years earlier when he was struggling artistically and his wife Ellen (Diana Kent) was diagnosed with a serious illness.

Freeman, Lynch and Kent are all fine in their roles, but the film is more atmospheric than anything else, with evocative seaside vistas and striking compositions. After a decade in Dutch television and doing commercial work, Penning’s feature directing debut, which he co-wrote, has visual flair but lacks the tightly plotted storytelling this type of film requires. Relying on mood isn’t nearly enough to make the outcome compelling.

The fragmented timeline is meant to inject the character with psychological complexity by juxtaposing his relationships to the two women, but it actually works against the story, lessening the tension rather than tightening the knot that seems to be around Morlang’s neck. The foreboding music and Morlang’s increasingly agitated state would indicate a desire on the part of Penning to stir the pot and pull in the audience, but the effect is the opposite.

Cameras figure prominently in the story as Morlang is constantly forced to face his own image, both as he incorporates photography into his work and in the technology that surrounds him. A videotape ultimately leads to the revelation of his dark secret but any curiosity over Ellen’s fate has long been wrung out of the film by that point.

Straining for emotional intricacy, the film’s structure simply isn’t strong enough to support its aims.

*

‘Morlang’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Adult situations, sexuality

Paul Freeman...Julius Morlang

Diana Kent...Ellen Morlang

Susan Lynch...Ann Burroughs

Eric van der Donk...Wim Giel

Marcel Faber...Robert Jansen

Film Movement presents a Phanta Vision Film International production. Director Tjebbo Penning. Producer Petra Goedings. Executive producers Vybeke Windelov, San Fu Maltha. Screenplay by Ruud Schuurman, Tjebbo Penning, Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet, story by Schuurman and Penning. Cinematographer Han Wennink. Editor J.P. Luijsterburg. Costume designer Nanda Korver. Music Soundpalette. Production designer Rikke Jelier & Alfred Schaaf. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

Exclusively at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 274-6869; and Academy 6 Cinemas, 1003 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. (626) 229-9400.