Boudewijn de Groot may be largely unknown to international audiences, but he enjoys an iconic status within Dutch popular culture. Starting out as a crooner in the early 1960s, he moved through the phases of protest singer, hippie and drug-influenced psychodelio, assuming the characteristics and looks of international pop counterparts such as Jacques Brel, George Harrison and Jim Morrison, before immersing himself into more introspective self-penned works.

De Groot’s upbringing was traumatic. His mother died in a Japanese camp in 1944 when he was just a year old. Even though the family moved back to the Netherlands soon after, his father felt compelled to return to the Dutch East Indies to “top up his pension”, which meant that Boudewijn and his two siblings were separated into different foster families. He suffered a further separation from his “second mother”, his Aunt Alie, at the age of seven when his father re-married, removing Boudewijn from a life of domestic harmony.

As Raes shows in her film, while Boudewijn elicits much devotion from an army of fans, friends, family members and colleagues, he finds it difficult to return these affections in equal measure, possibly because of the psychological trauma he suffered in early life. As his son Marcel reflects: “Emotionally speaking, he is completely unfathomable.”

“I was really enthusiastic to make this film because he is really one of the heroes from my youth,” says director Raes of her reaction to broadcaster NTR’s commission. “But of course I then had to meet him, and I thought after two hours that I cannot make a film about this man as he is so inside himself. This is not going to work. I met his wife, and that was very enjoyable, but he was just sitting there being on another planet. I was on the verge of saying ‘nice to meet you, but I cannot make a film about someone who cannot look me in the eye’.”

So Raes had to find a way of countering de Groot’s resistance, and so she asked to see the place where he wrote and played his music, at which point he began to open up. Then she decided to let the people from his past tell his story through their memories and reflections, and at the same time allow the audience to become better acquainted with him as he collaborates with colleagues on new songs. The film was shot after a ‘farewell to the past concert’ in which he played his popular material for the final time.

But the film isn’t all moody introspection, far from it. Actor Jeroen Krabbé describes the delicious sense of (literally) naked freedom that the swinging 1960s allowed him to explore with his friend Boudewijn. (The pair had a bet as to who would be famous first. Boudewijn won.) The black and white footage from experimental films and photos of increasingly Bacchanalian 72-hour parties remind us of the revolutionary culture from which de Groot’s artistry sprung. And his musical output encourages numerous epithets from his collaborators. He is referred to as a “born story-teller” with a voice that was “special, warm and mysterious, unadorned, straight to the heart”. Another contributor concludes he is “the ultimate exponent of the 60s”.

Also selected for IDFA 2015 is Need for Meat (Panorama) by Marijn Frank whom Raes mentored during the production. The film documents Frank’s attempts to come to terms with her meat addiction by taking an internship at a slaughterhouse.

Boudewijn de Groot - Come Closer. Dir/Script: Suzanne Raes, Production: Fabie Hulsebos for Docmakers.