It has all the elements for a riveting cinema experience: a voyage into unchartered waters, polar bears, hardship, heroism and Doutzen Kroes’ bosom in 3D. What the papers say about the Netherlands’ first 3D film.

Nova Zembla director Reinout Oerlemans’ pioneering Dutch venture into 3D film making tells the story of how Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerk set out to find a northern trade route to Asia in 1596. The eastern and western routes were dominated by the Spanish and the Portuguese and Dutch traders were clamouring for another route.
On rounding the tip of Nova Zembla the ship was closed in by ice floes and the men were left with no other option than to stay on the island until the ice melted. The men christened their wooden hut Het Behouden Huys (the safe house). Gerrit de Veer, the ship’s carpenter kept a diary which was published on his return in June the following year.
It’s a true story which has largely been unrecognised outside the Netherlands, and perfect material for a film.
Family film
However, most papers can take or leave Nova Zembla. Het Parool calls the film ‘a good effort in 3D filming’ although the extra dimension does not really add very much to the tale.
Neither does top model Doutzen Kroes who makes her film debut as De Veer’s love interest Catherina – whose memory keeps him warm during his wintry ordeal. To be fair, the paper writes, the dialogue she is given is not of the best quality. In spite of the model’s obvious attractions the film is remarkably chaste.
‘It’s a film for all the family’, the paper explains although it wonders how parents will tackle the little ones’ questions when confronted with the scene in which De Veer masturbates beneath his blanket while thinking of Doutzen.
The paper also has a gripe with the ‘contemporary Dutch’ spoken in the film. The budget, modest though it was for a film of such Hollywood pretensions, could have stretched to a language coach to turn protagonist Robert de Hoog’s ‘secondary school accent’ into something resembling 16th century Dutch, the paper opines.
Adrenaline
The Volkskrant praises Oerlemans for his courage to tackle difficult location filming but says the script lacks ‘adrenaline’.
The threat of ravenous polar bears does not keep the viewer on the edge of his seat: ‘the animals hardly ever put in an appearance’, the paper writes disappointedly. However, the image of Doutzen Kroes on a swing coming toward us, bosom heaving, will become a 3D classic, the paper predicts.
Missed opportunity
A news blog on NRC Next also zooms in on Doutzen Kroes’ boobs. The blog quotes film maker Ate de Jong who feels that not showing the model’s naked breasts in 3D is a ‘missed opportunity.’
The film maker, who has devised a stress test for films, thinks Nova Zembla will do well at the box office but lacks that ‘quintessential Dutchness’ that make films about World War Two or the Elfsteden skating marathon such sure fire hits. But the naked boobs would have helped, he adds.