Alabama Monroe

Powerful depiction of a dissimilar couple who faces softest and hardest moments of life. The little effect that leaves-by everyday when one's heart don't gets what is needed is counted on in the viewers' mind, culminating up to the extreme levels which require a faintest of pokes to fell down.

Everything in this movie is a piece of art. It will make you laugh as well as sob if you're alone. For drama lovers, it's a masterpiece; just pick it if you liked Paris, Texas or The English Patient, Bonnie and Clyde or Wild at Heart..

An Oscar deserving film, cleverly edited, acted and directed.

Yesterday i saw this beautiful movie about life, love and death. After half an hour i had the feeling i was looking to a amazingly well balanced and touching film. Every scene, switches in time, music and countryside setting, the actors, the Flemish language ... it all seems to fit together. All credits for that, because the content is rather heavy: the life of the the two leading persons turns completely upside down when their child becomes very ill. The good thing is that - despite the dramatic events - the film doesn't become sentimental at all. The enormous grief is shown beautiful in small details like a bent hand (in the song if i needed you) or the facial expressions of the main actors. Amazing (and yet, easy to believe) how two people can react so different on a tragic event like losing your child.

today i saw this little masterpiece about love & death at the berlinale filmfest. at the huge friedrichstadtpalast with 1500 people inside, many of them were crying. it was such a great trip the whole movie. at the end there were 10min standing ovations for the filmmakers. everyone was deep touched by the story, great acting and such good music. the music is full of pain, you could cry the whole day. camerwork is well balanced and the picture quality is really good. the editing was a big surprise. it jumps between past and present without confusing the audience. it generates many dramatic moments. chapeau felix van groeningen & team.

There are few films which depict raw emotions as powerfully as 'The Broken Circle Breakdown'. Set in Belgium, and somewhat reminiscent of 'Betty Blue', it tells of the love affair between Didier and Elise - a bluegrass musician and a tattoo artist. The story begins with the couple attending to their young daughter's needs in a cancer ward as she battles for her life against the disease. Flashback sequences portray the couple's initial meeting, Elise's incorporation into Didier's band as a vocalist, the mad passion of their early romance and the arrival of daughter Maybelle in their lives.

Back at the hospital seven years later, the child endures the toxic effects of chemotherapy, her health alternately improving and deteriorating, while the parents accompany her on this agonizing roller-coaster ride. Fracture lines appear in the couple's deep bond as atheist Didier rails against a god that could have inflicted such a cruel destiny upon the girl, while Elise struggles to hold onto hope. Somehow their epic odyssey into the deepest regions of pain is neither pessimistic nor depressing, and their story communicates profound insights about the need for love, forgiveness and understanding in extreme circumstances. By contrast, it makes most Hollywood productions look like trite insults to human intelligence. Perhaps they are - and maybe audiences should look elsewhere for authentic artistic expression. This film suggests Belgian cinema might be somewhere to start the search.

The bittersweet story of Didier and Elise, their child Maybelle and the blue grass music. Seeing this movie at the Berlin Film Festival I didn't expect anything in particular. What I saw was an emotional roller-coaster of a movie, beautifully cinematography, a great book, wonderful music. And oh those actors, bringing these written lines to life. It will bring even the most hard boiled audience to tears. But you will leave the cinema after that with a smile and be grateful for having witnessed the magic of movie making at it's best. Director Felix van Groeningen has made his masterpiece, I don't know how he can top that one. I am sure you will love that movie as much as I do.