Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Emilie Dequenne
Intro:
… near-perfect little film …
What the very best films – like the best plays and novels – can do, is take you imaginatively into a fully-realised world so that you can engage all your sympathies. In a way, it is art that reminds us how to be human.
This near-perfect little film from Belgium does this without appearing to ever strain for effect. Close is just exquisite. It is breathtaking how director Lukas Dhont can do so much with so little. Incidentally, it won the Sydney Film Festival Prize as well as being nominated for a Palme d’Or last year at a canter.
As implied, it is a very small canvas. It tells of a year in the life of two young teenage boys, Leo (a stunning turn from Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele). We open with them still playing pretend soldiers, complete with self-made wooden swords, but soon they are going to start the next year at school and they both sense that they will have to grow up a little.
When they hit the playground as besties, their physical closeness elicits slightly negative comments from their peers. One of the girls tries to tease them by implying that they are gay. However, their platonic bond is too strong to be deflected by that, at least initially.
Remi is a fine oboe player and Leo loves to watch him practice. He says, rather sweetly, that he will be his manager when he becomes famous so they can tour the world as a pair. Slowly, Leo develops his own interests too. He becomes sportier and joins an ice hockey team. Remi feels a little shut out from the more boisterous world.
Both of the boys’ parents are relaxed and welcoming and the boys frequent each other’s houses with ease. Leo and his older brother help out with his parents’ flower-growing business. All of them are living the best kind of life and enjoying the last days of summer.
This is the period of childhood that you think will go on forever. And it seems like it will, at least until something happens that brings about a great and sudden change.
The film’s mostly golden palette is perfect for the season and the use of long scenes with minimal dialogue and realistic spaces in the conversation, also works well. Both the boys are amazing talents, and they hold the frequent close-ups with ease while we, and the camera helmed by cinematographer Frank van den Eeden, delve into their thoughts and moods. The supporting adults, especially Emilie Dequenne as Remi’s mum, provide nuanced performances.
Really, it is hard to imagine how Lukas Dhont and co-screenwriter Angelo Tijssens could make a film like this any better. There is little more that needs saying. Just make sure you don’t miss it.
