People with Good Intentions

While Rinus van ’t Klooster spends his days sleeping and nights working, his wife takes care of their seven children. The year is 1969, and the family lives in a cramped three-room apartment in the ghetto of The Hague. The hygiene situation is also nothing to write home about, according to their son: “You can’t study when there are rats in the house.” The terrible living conditions exert an influence on the family. In a heavy Hague accent, Rinus’s wife tells us about her daughters’ bedwetting and the beatings she used to receive from her alcoholic husband. isn’t only a document of poverty in the 1960s, but also a nostalgic reflection on what life was like back then. We observe as one daughter fills the stove with coal, the baby gets a bath in a little tub and they all dance to the music of Pete Seeger. In this manner, we see both their abject poverty and a more personal side of them. After the film was broadcast on TV on May 11, 1969, riots broke out in the neighborhood and the family had to go into hiding. In the eyes of the residents, they had brought shame to the neighborhood. As a result, the municipal government was pushed into action and enacted plans to improve livability in the city.