Alles moet anders

Curiosity for a period that he himself had not experienced caused René Seegers to make a film about post-war Holland. After the liberation, the idea that everything had to change was vivid among large sections of the population. The spirit of the times seemed ready for it because the people were prepared to accept changes. Seegers' interest was especially in the plans that were cancelled or thwarted in the course of time. Many plans were not carried through because the old and familiar pre-war political relationships were re-established rather quickly. Seegers interviewed a number of people that were closely involved in the planning just after the war: J.R.M. van den Brink was concerned with the founding of the KVP (Catholic Party), W. Thomassen was the secretary of the Nederlandse Volksbeweging (Dutch National Movement), Theun de Vries wanted to set up a big leftist party, and H. Stout was active in the Indische Handelsonder-neming Intematio (Indian Commercial Enterprise).
For three hours, the spectator is shown a well built up documentary with a lot of beautiful material from archives, interviews and staged scenes, particularly about the reconstruction and the Indonesian conflict. Two problems geographically a great distance from each other, but linked like communicating vessels by the national budget. If money was spent on warfare it meant less money for reconstruction vice versa.
'Being Dutch' means for Seegers that the principle is more important than the cause, but that eventually compromise triumphs over principle. This tendency to come to a compromise caused the failure of the Dutch policy with respect to Indonesia.