Tag: Belgian

Hannah

Posted on by victorfraga

Hannah (Charlotte Rampling) lives in a suburban town somewhere in French-speaking Belgium. Despite her many years (the character is presumably in her 60s or 70s), she still has to work as a cleaner and housekeeper for a bourgeoisie family with a disabled child. She is married, but the relationship is mostly uneventful. She has a dog, her biggest companion. She takes theatre lessons, which seem to offer some sort of therapy and venting outlet for an otherwise tedious existence.

Then her husband gets imprisoned. Apparently she committed a crime towards a child, and her spouse took the blame for her. Just maybe. It’s never entirely clear what really happened. She also has a estranged son. He refuses to see his own mother and even prevents her from seeing her own grandchildren. He’s very upset, presumably at the crime that she committed. Her imprisoned husband is upset at his own son, and not at his wife Hannah. Presumably because of his refusal to see his mother. I have intentionally used the word “presumably” several times in this review. This is a film that only provides viewers with fragments of reality, allowing us to pierce the pieces together in an entirely different way. Another film critic I spoke to created an entirely different version of events.

Yet, this is not a detective movie. The Italian Andrea Pallaoro is not too concerned about the nature of the mysterious crime. Instead, he investigates Hannah’s personal relationships, routine, fears and ambitions. You will be asking yourself whether the plot will come full circle at the end of the movie, whether the relative equilibrium in Hannah’s life will be restored, whether the crime will be revealed or not. The intentionally monotonous and languid pace of the film suggest an all-too-European open ending. Will Pallaoro surprise us with a shock revelation, or will the questions be left unanswered? Of course I won spoil the ending for you. The last sequence of the film (and I was informed that two endings were initially made) takes place in the metro, and it’s very powerful exactly as it is.

In a way, Hannah is a neighbour that we all have. Or someone you see on the metro/Tube. We dislike and pity her in equal measures, while only knowing fragments of her life. Pallaoro emphasises our alienation with the constant use of slanted angles, mirrors and blurred surfaces (such as a steamed glass inside the slower). It’s as if she was saying to viewers: “you are taking very partial, subjective look into a stranger’s life. She’s fallible and she deserves our compassion, just like any human being on Earth”.

The camera is almost entirely static, except for a sequence in the public swimming pool and the final one in the metro. It reminded me a lot of Ulrich Seidl. The gaze remains motionless and firm, the action is subtle, yet the sentiments are rampant. Subtlety and simplicity speak louder than technical wizardry and myriads of twists.

The 70-year-old British actress is magnificent. She hollers and moans in her theatre class, in the very first sequence of the film. She does it again later in the second half of the movie as she breaks down in a public toilet cubicle (this time she isn’t acting, she’s having a real meltdown). She longs for her husband’s body in bed (this will ring a bell with those who watched Rampling’s character erotically fantasising about her missing husband in Francois Ozon’s Under The Sand, 2000). All extremely convincing and moving.

Hannah screened in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival, where Charlotte Rampling won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in 2017. It is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, March 1st.

Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle)

Posted on by victorfraga

After making his English language debut feature The Drop (2014) with Tom Hardy, Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam returns to his native country with Racer and The Jailbird. Evidently failing to make an impact with English speaking audiences, The Drop operates in a sphere of thrillers and muted colour palettes. Bringing a European sensibility to Brooklyn gangster narratives, it’s a film that scratches away at the surface of the vulnerability of criminality. Much of the same in some regards, this French, Belgian and Dutch co-production fails to provide any remote feeling of the titular genre even through its broad running time.

Before a single scene has unfolded, the stark opening title cards act as a precursor to the ‘gritty’ story that will unfold. Swiftly cutting to the titular ‘Racer’, Bénédicte (Adele Exarchopoulos) steps out of a Porsche after just winning a race. Greeted with an array of male gazes who are surprised at her sexuality and ability to successfully drive a car, she is instantly positioned as an object of desire. Holding an instant urge towards her, as all the other men in the cockpits do, Gigi (Matthias Schoenaerts) confidently approaches her and asks her out for a date. Failing to stop the charming advances of Gigi, all signified by his lavish pink sweater around his shoulders, the two instantly strike a cord and the filmmakers are keen to display this in an erotic fashion.

Proposing himself as a foreign car dealer Gigi is actually a gangster who robs banks and convoys for a living. Surrounded by his loud and abrasive crew, no personality is created in any of the minor characters. After being introduced to his world, Bénédicte and Gigi magically fall in love. Yet, when a bank job goes south, the two must face the repercussions on a personal and political level.

Blurring the lines between thriller and melodrama, the couple’s relationship is void of true feeling or emotive qualities. Absent is a sense of what makes them or each other tick away from sex. Their somewhat lavish lives fail to morph into a tangible sense of emotion in each structure, labelled ‘Bibi’ and ‘No Flowers’. Roskam so desperately uses every trope in the book, as illness and death, to provoke sadness or melancholy.

Collaborating with his leading man again, Matthias Schoenaerts is clearly committed to Gigi’s austere charisma around the crew and soft tender nature around Bénédicte. Showcasing the vulnerability to which the actor can portray in 2015’s Disorder, Schoenaerts when dealing with the right material can cut to the heart of masculinity’s fragility. Sadly, this is well absent here.

Bénédicte is written to corroborate with the follies of her partner. When his mission goes south, writers Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré and Roskam suppress her under the grips of patriarchy and unnecessary melodrama. Rarely is she given true autonomy or any awareness to leave this toxic relationship. To Gigi’s King, she is his pawn on the chess board. Exarchopoulos’ acting exudes a lot of his oppression and sadness too. Nevertheless, this specific use of femininity, which has to sacrifice its livelihood for a seemingly cool suave man, feels as though it should be a narrative element as extinct as the dinosaurs by now.

Cinematically speaking, Nicolas Karakatsanis’ muted cinematography is swift to heighten the genre with low-key lighting. After swooshing and sweeping his camera around Margot Robbie in I, Tonya (Craid Gillespie, 2018), his work here feels imitative. Accompanied by one big set piece which so badly wants to become Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), comparable to its use of female characters, Racer and The Jailbird, feels extremely old in its lack of imagination of new settings, characters or blocking.

Finishing on a note that desperately tries to develop into a profoundly emotional final note, through replaying previous dialogue shared between Bénédicte and Gigi and a PoV shot of a car racing through the streets, the long 130 minutes running time drains the life out of this feature. In an alternative reality, one would hope the titular racer would zooms off into the distant away from the claws of the mundane jailbird…

Racer and Jailbird is out in cinemas on Friday, July 13th, and then on VoD the following Monday (the 16th). Run away from it as fast as you can!

Home

Posted on by victorfraga

Where is home after all? The strikingly dark Belgian film Home is based on real events, and it will make you reconsider your views on where “home” should be. Is it a physical place, an address? Or is home a place where your heart belongs, a family? Home will make you rethink and reflect about feelings of belonging and displacement. It’s a fresh and dynamic essay on those born this century, their predicaments and issues.

Director Fien Troch accomplishes an outstanding and complex result in her fourth feature, which she developed via Script ‘n Pitch at the TorinoFilmLab (in Turin, Italy) and won the Arte France Cinema Prize. Home is a very close to real portrait of the gaps between generations, fathers and sons, and their struggles to get along. Generations that are apart as a consequence of the extreme advance of new technologies like games and mobile phones. These technologies highlight their differences and pushing them further apart.

Home is very audacious in its analysis of the clash of generations especially because it takes a very deep look at the relationships between families and their kids, instead of kids and teachers. It will raise awareness in a very actual matter: a family’s responsibility to bring up their kids, instead of allowing them to be indoctrinated by schools.

The film focuses on the arrival of teenager Kevin at his aunt Sonja’s house after being released from prison for a very serious attack on a civilian during a street fight. Having been abandoned by his own family, Kevin develops in his new ‘home’ a close relationship with his cousin Sammy and his friends from school. This new group of friends and new lease of life will give him a new chance but also will call him to deal with his outbursts of anger in order to avoid living as a young delinquent. During this journey Kevin meets John and discovers that he’s not alone. Many young people of the same generation face similar problems, and broken families seem to be everywhere. Meanwhile the parents and especially Kevin’s aunt Sonja are struggling to establish a bond with their teenage children.

The Belgian director cleverly portrays the uphill struggle for teenagers. They are being raised by a generation of mothers and fathers who are dysfunctional themselves, and who do not have the skills and abilities to raise kids in such complex times. Home is a brave statement of the fragility of two generations, and the outcome may come as a shock to you.

Home showed at the 73rd Venice Film Festival (in 2016) as part of the Horizons Section, when this piece was originally written. It is out as part of the Docs from around the World Collection (part of the Walk This Way Collection) on VoD on April 9th (2018). Click here in order to view the film on iTunes.