Tag: Belgium

Dark Heart of the Forest (Le coeur noir des forêts

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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Dark Heart of the Forest is a modest Belgian tale, handsomely told, bolstered by two keen performances by veteran child actress Elsa Houben and newcomer Quito Rayon Richter. Playing two young lovers who escape the confines of their care home and run off into the countryside, it explores the full potential of the woods for both rebirth and connection.

Nikolaï (Quito Rayon Richter) has always been an odd duck. Discovered in the forest by social services, he is quickly branded “Mowgli” by the other kids in the home. Meanwhile, Camille (Elsa Houben) appears to be the more put-together one, but she is hiding a second pregnancy that could land her in a lot of trouble. They quickly find each other in the home and decide to run away. Having no real parents themselves, and Camille losing her first baby due to a forced abortion, they want to be the type of good people that their parents never were.

Despite some narrative trickery in the first half— telling essentially the same story twice yet with key variations in both the male and female perspective — there is little in the final story that should surprise, bar the filmmaker choosing to end on either a positive or a tragic note. This is more of a mood and character piece than a conventional tale — for one, the gendarmerie don’t chase them around — taking great detail to capture the awkwardness of teenage love, as well as its elation, contrasted against a world that quickly wants to confine those who don’t fit in.

Living near a forest myself and usually walking there at least once a day with my dog, I have noticed how its entire look can change depending on the time of day, time of year, precipitation level, weather and available sunlight. As the name suggests, cinematographer Virginie Surdej captures the different moods of the forest well, from foreboding light green to malevolent darkness to hope in the form of the sun chinking through the trees. This moody feel is complemented by hazy synths and later, manic violin scales, rising to a crescendo during the film’s pivotal final scenes. Still, by the end it did feel as if the filmmaking team were running out of ways to shoot essentially the same place.

Shooting on handheld widescreen, featuring close-ups of small gestures and facial expressions, director Serge Mirzabekiantz takes great care to pay respect to the teenager’s plight, including teenage sex scenes that don’t come across as exploitative. While the more combative moments between the young and testy couple could’ve been more interestingly rendered, both Houben and Richter bring a fine rawness to their roles and their adolescent difficulties. Together they feel like a believable young couple, with all the attendant naïveté and passion that entails. The woods may be a cold, dank and often miserable place, but with the right person, there appears to be a chance to create something new.

Dark Heart of the Forest plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Madly in Life (Une Vie Démente)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

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Life doesn’t care about your plans. Alex (Jean Le Peltier) and Noemie (Lucie Debay) want a child, but have to put their lives on hold when Alex’s mother Suzanne (a superb Jo Deseure) is diagnosed with dementia. The result is a bittersweet Belgian drama-comedy that provides an unconventional yet refreshing portrait of one of the world’s most heartbreaking diseases.

Madly in Life starts with the small things, a cancelled credit card here, an unfiltered comment about sex there, before rapidly snowballing into a non-stop avalanche of issues. It soon turns out that Suzanne owes the government nearly €30,000, as she continued her job as an artistic director despite filing for a pension two years ago. Furthermore, she finds herself doing bizarre things, like getting into other people’s cars and houses. At first, it seems that she has become simply uncaring in her old age; but a trip to a professional shows that she is suffering from semantic dementia.

Directors Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni understand that dementia need not be expressed in clichés of mere forgetfulness — so often told in American films through unconvincing dream sequences in which people start disappearing — but can manifest itself in strange and unexpected ways.

The French title Une Vie Démente literally means “a mad life”, but functions as a clever pun on the similar word démence, which means “dementia”. This double-meaning of complex madness is not only true for Suzanne, radiantly captured by Desuere, but the young couple as well, who differ dramatically on the ways in which Suzanne should be treated. Putting their hope for a new apartment and baby on the back-burner, Madly in Life navigates a variety of escalating crises that vary from cancelling a trip on the weekend to discussing end-of-life care.

A mostly-realistic approach is complicated and enriched by a few surreal flights of fancy. For example, a repeated non-naturalist motif features the characters wearing matching clothes against a plain background, talking to a professional — whether its a pre-conception counsellor, tax accountant or a doctor — we never see. In these moments we get a sense of order that intentionally seems to jar against the chaotic world of Suzanne’s condition.

Further dislocation comes through the film’s multiple use of jump cuts. Put in places where another film would’ve let the camera roll, they create a difficult environment where resolution is not easily found. But the cast, seemingly improvising within these situations, keep an authentic and touching atmosphere throughout.

Ultimately, the film shows that there are no easy ways to cope with a loved-one losing their mind: only different degrees of less bad ones. By utilising black humour as well as heartfelt drama, Madly in Life neatly catches the highs and the lows of both life and love. An extension of several shorts the two directors have worked on together — many of which combine social reality with elements of the fable — it sees them expertly expand their pallet to a wider feature film.

Madly in LIfe plays as part of the First Feature competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.