Marnehuizen (NL)

Urban Trainings Centre Marnehuizen is the largest military practice setting in Europe. American and European military prepare their missions here.



This ‘practice’ village counts a 122 houses and a real infrastructure like an ordinary Dutch village and is located in a nature reserve in the north of the Netherlands.



There are new fake designed ruins and the style of the architecture reminds of the many newly build domestic areas in the Netherlands. The village consists of houses, a railway station, a city hall, bank, supermarket, gas station, an industrial zone and an underground sewer system.


 
The names of the streets in Marnehuizen refer to the bombed streets in the centre of Rotterdam (WOII).
  
I got permission to film in a holiday period, when there were no trainings. The village was abandoned but the streetlights were lit. The atmosphere is quite uncomfortable and you can hear the metal window panels making noise in the wind. The camera slowly enters the village into the night and crosses the deserted village in one long uninterrupted camera movement.