Written by Carl Joos and Felix van Groeningen
Based on the play by Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels
Starring Johan Heldenbergh and Veerle Baetens
Belgium, 2012
This movie bounces around chronologically through the relationship of two Belgian bluegrass musicians who meet, fall in love, make music together, make a child together, build a life together and then lose everything when the child dies of cancer.
It sounds depressing, and it is, though it does not wallow in misery quite the way that I thought it might, going into it. Showing not just the trials of caring for a child with cancer, but also the prologue to that and the aftermath, especially in no particular order, helped put things into a little bit of a context that offered more than just misery, though the movie, to its credit, also does not condescend.
One interesting thing about this movie is that it takes a couple that might otherwise be idealized in other media, whether it's a music video or even an indie flick, and shows them as real people. We've got a couple of quirky Belgians who love Americana, live on a farm, make their own updates to their ramshackle house, hang out with their friends from the band doing impromptu bluegrass jam sessions around the camp fire. In the wrong hands, this would all turn into a festival of twee, but this movie is not about that -- it's about how the trappings of one's life, no matter how specific, are not the point. The point is, it's still a life.
That said, I can't think of a more specific take on this than looking at it through the lens of a Belgian bluegrass musician who romanticizes America, especially when politics and religion come into the equation. I was having trouble putting this into words the other day, but I read a blurb about this movie that put it nicely: he's an atheist romantic and she's a religious realist. In other words, he's aggressively torn up about this terrible situation to the point where he has to scream about these injustices into the void. He behaves completely emotionally over a logical conclusion: there is no afterlife.
She, on the other hand, believes in spirituality, and is able to accept what has happened and try to move on. He suspects, for instance, she might entertain the fantasy that their daughter might come back to visit them in the form of a bird, and feels the need to scream at her that that's not going to happen. On the other hand, even though you might argue that's a fanciful belief, she is able to somewhat coldly and logically move on with her life.
Cold is the wrong word. Obviously she's torn up, just as he is. It's just that he screams his passion from the roof tops and she keeps hers inside. It's two extremely different ways of dealing with grief and of course you could argue that the best way to do it is somewhere in the middle there. Maybe if they could have stayed together, they would have balanced each other out, eventually.
There aren't any easy answers, because this movie is as messy as real life, and based on characters rather than plots. There is, however, lots of great bluegrass music, performed by the actors themselves, and even if you don't want to sit through the movie I recommend checking out the soundtrack.
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