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Wan Pipel Movie Review

Wan Pipel is a 1976 Surinamese romantic drama film directed by Pim de la Parra and starring Borger Breeveld. It is a melodramatic, but highly effective drama.

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Roy is a handsome Surinamese man who studies in Amsterdam. He hurriedly leaves his Dutch girlfriend Karina to visit his dying mom in Paramaribo. Back in his homeland, Roy soon becomes obsessed with his own country and its culture. When he falls for the Hindu nurse Rubia, the conservative Hindu and black communities are in revolt. One day Karina arrives in Suriname too. This is the basic plot behind this very interesting and culturally specific movie.

Suriname is the smallest country in South America with the population at around half a million. The country’s main language is Dutch and it was once their colony, but is now a rich and diverse nation composed of many different peoples, cultures and languages. All of this is reflected on the basic premise of the movie, which made perfect use of the unique nature of this country, thus being the only and best film representing the nation.

I am usually not in favor of love triangles and overly dramatic storytelling and here it was definitely overly clichéd and aggressively manipulative in that regard. However, the melodrama fits the Latin American cultures much better than others and it is the culturally unique and diverse Suriname that was certainly a great place to choose for this triangle between Hindu, black and Dutch people.

Wan Pipel is at its best when it’s focusing on the plight of the protagonist. Yes, Roy is not all that likable as a person, but Borger Breeveld delivered such a superb performance in the role and the character was nuanced and very well written. The conflict that he experiences between wanting to go back to the Netherlands or stay in Suriname was well explored and quite moving.

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The girlfriend characters were also quite well developed and the love triangle here was actually among the better ones I’ve seen as I’m usually not a fan of them. The movie is overlong for such a simple story and it needed stronger technical aspects to elevate it, but it did feature a solid score and a well represented culture through singing and dancing. The ending was very powerful emotionally speaking and the dialogue was quite strong too.