Character (film)

Character Dutch Karakter is a 1997 DutchBelgian film, based on the bestselling novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk and directed by Mike van Diem. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards. The film stars Fedja van Hut, Jan Decleir, and Betty Schuurman.

The story begins when Katadreuffes taciturn mother, Joba played by Schuurman, worked as a housekeeper for Dreverhaven. During that time, they had sex only once it is implied that the encounter was forced upon Joba. She becomes pregnant and leaves her employer to make a living for herself and her son. Time and again, she rejects Dreverhavens offers by mail of money and marriage.Even as a child, Katadreuffe finds that his path crosses with Dreverhaven, often with dire consequences. When he is arrested for becoming involved in a boyish theft and tells the police that Dreverhaven is his father, Dreverhaven refuses to recognize him as his son. When, as a young man, he unwittingly takes a loan from a bank that Dreverhaven owns to purchase a failed cigar store, Dreverhaven sues him to win the money back and force him into bankruptcy. Still, Katadreuffe manages to pay back the debt, finding a clerical position in the law firm retained to pursue him for his cigarstore debt. He manages to secure this job, even though most of his education is derived from reading an incomplete Englishlanguage encyclopedia that he finds as a boy in his mothers apartment studying this set, he manages to teach himself English, which turns out to be a valuable talent in the eyes of his employers. ........

Source: Wikipedia