The Fourth Man

Verhoeven's last Dutch movie is a deliciously overripe male melodrama based on a novel by Gerard Reve and packed with ostentatious, tongue-in-cheek symbolism. Krabbé is entirely persuasive as a feverish, manic-depressive Catholic homosexual novelist (!) who beds a female fan though it's her fella he really fancies (in one sexy sacrilegious fantasy he imagines him crucified). Christine, proprietress of the Sphinx beauty parlour, washes his hair with Delilah shampoo, and it may be that she's dangerous - her track record with men leaves a lot to be desired. A hot, florid, outrageously funny film that nevertheless plays at a dreamy, trance-like pace, this earned Verhoeven his best ever notices - an anomaly he attributes to its slow, arty camera moves.