Onder invloed / Under Influence

In a stiff Flemish village in the seventies, a hapless son (Robrecht Vanden Thoren) and his mother (Marijke Pinoy) are stuck in a daily routine, ever since the father left for parts unknown. A Dutch terrassier (Raymond Thiry) disturbs the quiet: he prises the son loose from his mother and introduces him to his very young fling — a Lolita type, complete with heart-shaped sunglasses and painted nails.

Nova van Dijk directed the screenplay by her sister Laura van Dijk, based on a newspaper clipping and laced with family anecdotes. Her grandfather's brother, like the protagonist, never left his mother's house; her other grandfather called himself a 'terrassier'. Cinephile references — to Kubrick's Lolita and (coincidentally) Akerman's Jeanne Dielman — give the film a double meaning.

Onder invloed is part of the One Night Stand VIII series: short fiction with the freedom to show anything — even a llama as a pet, which incidentally is real.