El círculo roto

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.

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.

Oh and did I mention it's a foreign film? I simply cannot say how much I loved this movie. It's the story of Didier, a bluegrass singer, and Elise, a tattoo artist who fall in love. The film chronicles their lives over a period of approximately 7 years. The highs and the lows. The joy and the pain.

The movie captures your attention from go, with the great music and locks you in for the journey with their fast moving romance and the family tragedy that they go through and how they both deal with it. I was moved to tears on more than one occasion with this movie.

The story goes back and forth in time with a subtlety that would impress Tarantino or Nolan. The directing is inspired and the cinematography fits the mood of the movie. You forget your reading subtitles quickly and immerse yourself in their odyssey. This is definitely one of the best movies of the year and it is a shame that it is only up for Best foreign film. It could give the big dogs a run for their money this year, if it had a chance.

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.

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.