The Broken Circle Breakdown
Studio: Tribeca Film
Directed by Felix Van Groeningen
Oct 31, 2013
Web Exclusive
Didier, a rugged bluegrass musician (Johan Heldenbergh) walks into a tattoo parlor to flirt with Elise, the charming ink artist (Veerle Baetens) working the counter. They fall in love immediately; she moves into the camper parked outside the derelict farmhouse he’s inherited and becomes the singer in his band. Time passes; Elise discovers she’s pregnant, and Didier starts to work fixing up the homestead. They have a daughter, and the three live happily for the next six years, until their child is diagnosed with cancer.
The Broken Circle Breakdown, Belgium’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film, was adapted from a stage play written by the film’s star, Heldenbergh. A musical, to a certain capacity—the superb soundtrack set sales record in its home country—it’s packed with traditional bluegrass and new arrangements of contemporary songs, all performed by the film’s cast. More so than its music, Broken Circle’s greatest merit are the compelling performances Van Groeningen cultivates from both his leads. (Baetens, in particular, brings a complex fragility to her role.) Didier and Elise are rich, incongruous characters: one, a steadfast atheist, the other a volatile romantic. Their story is told out of order, in an editing style which places import on emotion over chronology; we’re shown pieces of their life and asked to draw our own lines of continuity. The final product is dour to the point of crushing, but the relationship at its heart is beautiful and naturalistic, which makes the couple’s story all the more heartbreaking.
www.thebrokencirclebreakdown.be/en
Author rating: 7.5/10
Average reader rating: 10/10
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