糖多少钱 / Hoe duur was de suiker (2013)

　　The recent Netherlands Film Festival opening film is a very loose adaptation of the eponymous bestseller by Surinamese novelist Cynthia McLeod (daughter of independent Suriname’s first president, Johan Ferrier), and is no doubt well intentioned, though its tendency to foreground a dominantly white perspective doesn’t jive with its choice of a black narrator (which is different from the book). Africa-born, Netherlands-based director Jean van de Velde, whose Cannes-selected The Silent Army,&nbsp;<span style="text-wrap: wrap;">about African child soldiers,&nbsp;<span style="text-wrap: wrap;">suffered fr<span style="text-wrap: wrap;">o</span>m similar point-of-view problems,<span style="text-wrap: wrap;">&nbsp;at least manages to get an juicy lead performance out of young actress Gaite Jansen (Paul Verhoeven’s Tricked), who impressively goes all out in embodying the porcelain-skinned spitfire of privilege that’s the tale’s true protagonist.</span></span></span>