FLYING HOME

This is the rather preposterous tale of a Middle Eastern Sheik who is being wooed by different Wall Street Hedge Funds who want to get hold of his oil billions to invest.  High-flying broker Colin is despatched to charm the reluctant Emirate who is on the verge on signing up with a rival Firm. Colin knows that every man has a weakness (his own in meaningless sex with blonde bimbos) and he is determined to establish what his 'mark's' is and fulfill it, and thus win the lucrative account.

Turns out that the man who lives in the middle of the desert is a pigeon fancier, and if that is not ridiculous enough, he lusts after the World Champion Pigeon who is owned by a Belgian breeder who refuses to part with it, even for a kings ransom.  Colin declares he will do the seemingly impossible and obtain this precious bird and bag the account too.

Next stop is Flanders in Belgium and traveling under a false name and a convoluted story about looking for an the grave of an ancestor who had died there in World War 2, he worms his way into the local village to track down his prey without alerting anyone to his mission.  Pauwels the elderly Breeder has an attractive 30 something-year-old granddaughter called Isabelle, and Colin soon works out that the way to getting his hands on the pigeon is by getting his arms around the girl first.

He easily wins her heart but not Pauwels's, so when push comes to shove Colin has to revert to his usual mode of 'dirty tricks' in order to successfully blackmail the old man into selling the pigeon, and so naturally both Pauwels and Isabelle end up hating him.

Back in New York, and a happy Sheik signs away his billion dollar account, and Colin gets very rich from his fat bonus and promotion.  But despite this, he is totally miserable, and even his quick usual one-night stands are no longer doing it for him.  Colin is in love, and he knows that he will have to give up all his worldly trappings and undo his dirty deeds and get the wretched pigeon back if he is to get the girl in the final reel.  

This well-meaning and extremely predicable and somewhat silly tale will find an appreciative for one reason only.  It stars the Northern Ireland hunky heartthrob actor Jamie Dornan who is about to be elevated to the Hollywood 'A' List when the much-hyped '50 Shades of Grey' opens soon.  Dornan puts in a good performance but the whole thing is hardly a stretch for him or Charlotte De Bruyne his co-star.

Written and directed by an Oscar nominated filmmaker Dominique Deruddere, the movie was a smash hit when it opened in Belgium in April. We will however have to wait a while longer to see if Jamie really can make this wee film fly. 

★★★★★★

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

Didier and Elise may look like a good fit when they fall in love at first sight and start a life together on his rundown farm, but appearances can be deceiving. This lanky bearded bluegrass banjo playing man is a romantic atheist whereas Elise, a beautiful blond hippy tattoo artist who maps her life out by the ink on her body, is a religious realist.

They both share a passion for each other and also for making music together and when Elise becomes suddenly pregnant, they extend this to Maybelle their child too. It's a big happy family until one day Maybelle, now aged 7, is diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Elise finds solace in her spirituality and in religious symbolism, whereas an desolate Didier focuses his anger at raging at the fanatics of the religious right who are successful in banning cell stem research that could help others like his child.

Keeping their lives together becomes more difficult as they get mired in their grief, and this couple that were inseparable can now barely speak to each other and are bound to go their desperate ways.

In this story co-written from a play by lead actor Johan Heldenberg (Didier) what strikes one most is the sheer intensity of every single part of the story. Right from the very raw love-making of the pair, to the heart wrenching twist of the child's sudden illness. When Didier suddenly loses his cool completely and rants and rages at the audience in the middle of his band's performance he is really asking what the point of life actually is if tragedies like the loss of his child can occur.

The irony is that this Flemish man has always been so impressed with everything American as he believes life there is perfection, yet he can see from his TV (Pres. Bush at a news conference) that the culprits who are stopping the medical research are in his precious USA.  And the Appalachian music he is devoted to sing is deeply infused with the God that he hates so much.

It's an immensely powerful and painfully devastating movie that will move you to tears more than once. Watching the pair struggle to come to terms with having to witness the sheer cruelty of Maybelle's suffering, (with a staggeringly realistic performance from an exceptionally talented five year old Nell Cattrysse) and then trying to find some rationality in the situation just exasperates their anger even more.

And lest I should forget, there is the glorious haunting Bluegrass music that peppers the whole story ..... and all sung and played by the actors themselves.

This is Belgium's official nomination for Best Foreign Language Oscar and has deservedly made the final shortlist and is a very serious contender for actually winning.  It has already been picking up awards around the world including a Best Actress one at Tribeca Festival for Veerle Baetens's riveting performance as Elise.

Unmissable.

★★★★★★★★★★

OUR CHILDREN

The opening scenes of this movie pulls you up sharp. On the screen there is a distraught young woman lying in a hospital bed hooked up to an oxygen machine and desperately pleading to the visitor we cannot see. She simply keeps begging 'Bury them in Morocco.  Tell their father, bury them in Morocco.' And then it cuts away to an airport and we can just see four small coffins being loaded onto a plane.  It stuns you into total silence.

And immediately afterwards we see the same woman, obviously much younger, laughing and frolicking with her lover. This is the start of the story that we already know the ending off.  Murielle is having an affair with Mounir her handsome Moroccan boyfriend who is so besotted with her, that he pops the question soon after they meet. He shares the house ......on the coast of France ... with Andre a much older successful Doctor who is something of a father figure to him.

As much as Murielle tries, Andre seems completely disinterested in her, but he agrees that she should move in once the young couple are married.  His wedding gift to them is a honeymoon trip which they insist they will only accept if he accompanies them, to which he acquiesces somewhat easily.

For years Andre has been looking after Mounir and his family ..... he even married his sister so that she could get French Residency ...and so the young man is anxious to please his benefactor.  So too does Murielle at first, and she succeeds when she gives birth to her first baby which Andre adores.  She follows with a second one, and then a third which makes their living arrangements rather a tight fit. Murielle is not happy and neither are the men, by now also working together, who are also constantly snapping at each other.

A very unhappy Murielle finds herself pregnant for the fourth time and this dispels any misbelieving we may have had about the opening scene, as we now know who were in those coffins.  Watching this ex school-teacher and rational young woman come so unhinged is tough to witness, and even though you know where this is heading, you are still not prepared for the ghastly impact of the final scenes.

The whole cataclysmic story is beautifully executed and watching how this perverse relationship between the two men should be ultimately responsible for this unspeakable tragedy is chilling.  I'm shuddering at the thought of it  just reliving it all again by reading my notes now!

Directed and co-written by Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse whose somewhat brief but controversial resume includes 'Private Lessons' in 2008 about paedophilia which I absolutely loathed. This one however as tough as it is to view, should be seen, as it is a remarkable piece of work.  The two men were played by Tahar Rahim and veteran Nils Arestrup who played a different 'father and son' dynamic in 'A Prophet' ..... they are equally as brilliant in both.  It is however the performance of Émilie Dequenne as Murielle that has you gasping for breath at times .... it quite rightly won her a Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

How anything so bitterly sad as this could be so watchable may be hard to comprehend, but trust me it's totally worth the risk.  And instead of just Kleenex besides you that I recommend for tough movies, I would suggest a large glass of whisky too. Neat.

In US theaters now.

★★★★★★★★★★

NORTH SEA TEXAS

The wonderful opening sequence of 6 year old Pim dressing up in his mother's old beauty pageant sash and tiara and posing in front of the mirror sets the scene for a delightful coming-of-age story that combines all the angst with a great deal of humor and charm.

Set in a tiny Belgium coastal town in the 1970's, young Pim lives alone with his plump fun-seeking restless mother who thinks nothing of leaving him on his own with just a jam sandwich for his dinner whilst she spends her nights in the local bar with her accordion and her latest beau.  By the time he is 14 he is spending more time at a neighbor's house than at home.  The attraction is not just the mother of the house who feeds and comforts him, but her floppy haired 17 year old son Gino who Pim has developed an almighty crush on.

One night when Pim gets to sleep over he finds the feelings are mutual and the two boys start having secret trysts whenever than can sneak away.  The trouble is once Gino is 18 and he gets a motorbike it means his world opens up, and he ends up forsaking Pim to go to the next big town and getting himself entangled with a girlfriend.

Broken hearted Pim, something of a loner at the best of times, withdraws even more into his usual shell and then he gets totally freaked out when Gino's younger sister Sabrina comes on to him.  And even the arrival of Zoltan a handsome new male lodger back at home doesn't distract him enough, especially when it's his mother that ends up in his bed, and not him.  When his mother ends up running off with Zoltan, a desolate Pim packs up and moves in to live with Sabrina and her mother .....Gino has also left home by now.

But all is not lost, as this captivating story about an adolescent with his innate inability to verbalise any of his emotions, has a surprisingly happy ending. 

Its the first feature length movie from Belgian filmmaker Bavo Defurne which he  adapted from a novel by André Sollie. Stunningly photographed in almost faded light that evokes such a great period feel to the piece.  M. Defurne cast it well, especially the two young unknown actors who played the leads so convincingly ..... and I also really liked Eva van der Gucht as the blowzy mother who loved to lounge on the couch like a beached whale demanding that Pim wait on her.

If only all first-loves were as sweet and sensitive as this and devoid of all the usual melodramas!! 

★★★★★★★★

THE FAIRY aka LA FEE

Dom, a sad looking sap of a man, is the night porter at a cheap shabby hotel in the seaport of Le Havre. As he is settling in for another quiet night Fiona, barefoot and with just the clothes she stands in, walks in and asks for a room, and then announces that she is a Fairy and will grant Dom three wishes.  He chooses two: a motor scooter and free gasoline for life, which he gets but then he is stuck as to what to use his third wish on.

Fiona is as nutty as a fruitcake but that doesn't stop simple Dom falling head over heals for her.  When she suddenly vanishes, Dom tracks her down to the local mental hospital where she is an inpatient. She’s now pregnant but luckily for her as this is a magical farce she balloons out in minutes and not months and their baby is born very soon after that.


And they live happily ever after.  Well, its not quite as simple as that, but that's the gist of the plot, which frankly is not that essential in the telling of this story. In this wonderful somewhat bizarre gentle slapstick comedy/farce that is very much in the tradition of  silent movies, there are a series of unrelated side strands that add little to moving the plot along but a great deal to the enjoyment of the piece.  Like the so-called English traveller that hides his dog in his bag when he checks into the hotel and the ‘bag’ then runs around on its own. And the African gentlemen that live on the beach in an abandoned wreck of a car that they insist on trying to repair for their planned illegal entry into England.

I absolutely adored this sweet and very silly film … in reminded me very much of the marvelous deadpan comedy of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki (maybe also be the fact that it was shot in Le Havre like his last movie).  This is not side-splitting funny but there are a couple of truly comic genius moments like when Dom smuggles a pregnant Fiona out of the hospital in his oversized raincoat, or when Fiona goes shoplifting.  If you like the subtly of the humour of 'The Artist' then I think you will like this one too.

It's the work of a Belgian based trio of comics who jointly wrote, directed and starred in this their 3^rd movie.  Two of them, Dominique Albe and Fiona Gordon who play the leads uncannily look the same.  Their work is not showy or unrestrained but is quietly absurd and if it appeals to you ( and this will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea) it will have you grinning from ear to ear and chuckling to yourself.

You don't have to believe in fairies to enjoy this movie, but then again, it might help.

P.S. And Dom never did use his 3rd wish but maybe the happy ending was his unspoken one after all.

★★★★★★★★

THE KID ON A BIKE

The kid in the title is 11-year-old Cyril and the bike is his means to whiz around the small Belgian town desperately looking for his father who abandoned him in a Children’s Home and who has never bothered coming back even to visit.  Cyril breaks out of the Home one day with the Social Workers in hot pursuit and they track him down at the empty apartment his father had once lived in, and in the subsequent chase he bumps into Samantha a pretty young woman who he clings too asking for her help.

Its she that locates his bike and returns it to him and even though Cyril shows little gratitude to this stranger’s kindness, he nevertheless persuades her to come back the next weekend to become his ‘foster family’ so that he can spend a night or two out of the Home.

Together they track the father down to only discover that he has a new girlfriend and a new job and he wants absolutely nothing to do with Cyril which breaks the kids heart.  He takes his frustration out on Samantha and in a bid to get accepted by someone, he hooks up with local teenage hoodlum who persuades Cyril to stage a robbery.

The robbery, like poor Cyril’s life to date, goes terribly wrong and could/should be his downfall.  It isn’t though as this gritty tale is a story about love and redemption, and has probably got the happiest ending ever seen in a Dardennes brother’s movie (which isn't saying an awful lot!)

These Belgian Filmmaker brother’s movies seem to all deal with abandoned or alienated children, and the ‘baddie’ always seem to be the dad.  Although to be totally fair, the Dardennes seem intentionally to not make moral judgments or even take sides.  If anything they seem to have a compassion with their characters which makes them (and the plot) so much more believable.

The mystery in this their latest (and probably best) movie is Samantha, as there is no hint at all why she should take this handful of a mixed up kid under her wing. After a particular temper tantrum from Cyril, Samantha’s rather frustrated boyfriend asks her to choose between him and Cyril.  And without hesitating, she chooses the kid.  And at one point Cyril asks Samantha why she has taken him on, she claims she really doesn't know why.  And nor do we.

This their 3^rd Cannes Palme Do’r Winner …. a record that’s probably unmatched by any other director.  It's an award well deserved as you are drawn in completely from the first opening scenes and get totally invested in this young kid’s story as he pedals so frantically around town.  They have an uncanny way of telling the most emotionally compelling stories of some very brutal relationships in the most refreshingly straightforward and simple pared down manner.

I should also say that good casting helps too.  Samantha is played by the wonderful Cecile De France; Jeremie Renier who played the kid on the scooter in the Dardenne's 'La Promesse' in 1996, now plays the Dad, and very talented young Thomas Dorn played Cyril.  Maybe he'll be back in 20 years playing someone else's dad too.

P.S. Credit where it is due.  This movie was on my radar when I first read about it, but I am indebted to Dana Keith the Director of the Miami Beach Cinematheque for putting on a whole Dardennes Brothers Retrospective that has helped me discover their earlier work and made me total fan.


★★★★★★★★★

LA PROMESSE

With the Belgian film auteur Dardenne brothers latest movie 'The Kid on The Bike' opening in NY to near rave reviews, it seemed like a good time to hone up on some of their earlier successes that are playing in a Retrospective at the Miami Beach Cinematheque this month. With five films in their resume winning at Cannes Film Festival, there is a wealth of history to choose from, and strangely enough my first taste was to be the brilliant 'La Promesse', which for some odd reason the folks at Cannes let it walk away without an award.

Filmed in 1996 it could almost be called 'The Kid In The Bike Mk 1' as Igor the protagonist is a 15-year-old boy who is swept up in his father’s world that ruthlessly exploits illegal immigrants and is always racing around their small rather squalid looking town on his motorized scooter. 

Roger (the dad) runs a construction business and forces the immigrants to work for him as laborers to pay off their ‘debt’ of being given a safe haven.  They try to hide when an Immigration Inspector turns up one day and Hamidu, one of the men, has a serious accident and falls badly off the scaffolding, and rather than allow Igor to take him to hospital Roger persuades him to be complicit in letting the man die, and then help him dispose of his body to avoid any trouble with the authorities. Before he dies, Hamidu begs Igor to promise to take care of his wife Assita and their baby who have recently arrived from Africa.

Igor tries to salvage his conscience by doing small favours for Assita like paying off her debts, whilst at the same time Roger frantically goes to great length to cover up the crime.  As time passes and Assita grows more suspicious about their excuses for her husband’s sudden disappearance, she consults an African seer who confuses her suspicions which sends her into a real panic.  When her baby gets seriously ill and much to Roger's chagrin Igor rushes to help her, there is the inevitable brutal and nasty showdown between father and son.

It’s time for them all to make choices, particularly Igor, who has grown fond of Assita and feels that he should tell her the truth regardless of the consequences. But in the end nothing is left neat or tidy, and even by making moral choices there is still no conclusion. Yet somehow it seemed OK that the Dardennes just left us hanging there wondering.

The frenetic pace never let up for one single moment and with the sheer nastiness of this society’s underbelly of racist xenophobes that profited by making a quick buck out of exploiting helpless and desperate immigrants who placed their lives in their hands had me walking out of the theater totally stunned. It’s obviously not just something that could happen only in Belgium (although after watching the ultra-violent 'Bullhead' recently I must say I'm rethinking the idea that they are such nice gentle people after all ..LOL).  It could happen anywhere , and sadly at any time.

The shining exception was the character Igor played quite brilliantly by a very  young Jeremie Renier  it was a remarkable performance.  Now I cannot wait to see 'The Kid on The Bike' as in this new movie,  a very grown up Mr Renier gets to play the dad!


★★★★★★★★★

BULLHEAD

The first time that young Jacky was aware of women’s breasts was also the same day a neighbor’s rather demented son smashed his testicles to shreds.  Deflowered of his ‘manhood’ at this tender age he started a daily regime of inject himself with all manner of testerone to bulk himself up to mask his insecurity.  He was only really repeating what his cattle farming family had illegally been doing to their livestock for years and in fact they were the exactly the same steroids.

As a bulky pumped up adult Jacky is consumed with rage intimidating people for his uncle who raises beef cattle. He gets involved in Belgium’s ‘hormone mafia’ who have fatally shot a cattle inspector who was about to expose them and now the police, aided by an informer in their midst, are in hot pursuit and are closing in on them all.

To be perfectly frank, the overly complicated plot with its rival gangs and an intense drama over a stolen car was not easy to fathom out for the first part of the movie, and the dramatically darkly lit locations didn’t help either, but it all makes sense in the end.  What makes this violent thriller a real cut above the rest is angry Jacky’s complete obsession, which is propelled by his great fear and insecurity about being a ‘real man’.  Despite his abhorrent violent attitude of a man totally out of control caused his excessive overuse of hormone injections, there is still a part of you that wants to sympathize with the young boy who didn't deserve to end up like this.

This is all set in a remote part of Belgium where the rivalry between the Walloons and Flemish people just added another confusing dimension to the plot.  The Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts gave an outstanding raw performance as Jacky, which really made the movie so fascinating …. I read too that he had really bulked up considerably for the role (as pictures proved he did) BUT without using any steroids.  Now, that is dedication for you,

BEFORE BULLHEAD

This was Belgium's entry for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and it is quite wonderful to watch but totally unsettling.  I am seriously thinking about becoming a vegetarian now I really know what they pump in that meat.  And I shall look twice at any meaty farmer from now on too!


★★★★★★★★