Powers Of Observation

Dear, oh dear. My favourite Dutch TV series at the moment is Keyzer & De Boer Advocaten. It takes place in a solicitors’ office, somewhere in Amsterdam Zuid. But where exactly?

Each week, I have been trying to figure out from the outdoor scenes where the office is supposed to be. I knew it must be somewhere within sight of the Koninginneweg or Willemsparkweg, because you can always see tram 2 hammering down the road about 100 metres away. Try as I might, though, I just couldn’t pin down the side street containing the big office with the balcony on the first floor.

I asked Sarah to watch the start of episode 15, which has a nice pan shot of the crossroads by the office. Imagine my shock when Sarah announced after a couple of seconds that the area on film was, in fact, the Emmalaan. Nothing meaningful there, perhaps, until I tell you that the house in question is a sixty second walk (if that) from our house. I pass the building that plays the part of Keyzer & De Boer’s business premises virtually every day and yet I still couldn’t recognise it from the generous, wide-angle shots on TV. That’s how bad my observational skills really are.

The clues were there, of course. Every time there’s a scene in the Vondelpark, we see the characters entering the park via the Emmalaan entrance. As I considered where the location of the office might be, I had dismissed the use of this entrance as a bit of artistic licence on the part of the production team. After all, if they were really using an office that close to our own house, I would obviously recognise the location. Niet dus.

I knew my powers of observation were severely lacking, but this signals a new low in my visual perception.