Villa des roses

In the world of Belgian cinema, Frank Van Passel has been more than just a name for quite some years now. Both 'Manneke Pis' and 'Terug naar Oosterdonk' made an unforgettable impression and made him perhaps the most important Belgian director to walk the face of the earth. Recently, though, things grew a bit quiet around Frank Van Passel, but let there be no mistake about it: he is back. And how! A firm script by Christophe Dirickx, years of hard work by Frank Van Passel and a for a Belgian movie most extraodrinary cast (Julie Delpy, Shaun Dingwell, Hariet Walter, Jan Decleir, Dora Van der Groen and Frank Vercruysse), all these ingredients make 'Villa Des Roses' an incredible and unforgettable cinematographic experience. Though I was fairly sceptic about the mix of ingredients, the result is more than convincing. Each character receives a well-balanced attention. 'Villa Des Roses' is a must-see and I hope that audiences abroad as well as distributors worldwide will acknowledge, through this sutble masterpiece, that Belgium is more than capable of producing great cinema.

I think Frank Van Passel and Christophe Dirickx have succeeded beautifuly in capturing the essence of Elschot's classic novel. Sure, the other characters may have been minimised in the plot, but by doing so, the bulk of the story is allowed to breathe. You can only get so much of a large novel into 2hrs of screentime.

As for continually asking the question "why?", I have a question: Why is this a problem? I found it very stimulating to question throughout this film- I don't like to be spoon-fed answers. It kept me thinking. Not a bad thing.

By the end of the film, I was very glad of the ambiguity. I think it captured the ambiguity of love, lust and ambition. It didn't try to tie everything up in a ribbon- a bit like life itself really.

Beautifully written, directed and performed.

Boring. Boring. Boring. Sure, some of the shots looked sort of pretty, but not unlike all the other films you've seen dealing with this period. Nothing new or interesting happens, so you can't even call the film daring or interesting. Some people will call the film well made (even the ones that don't like it), but what does that mean? If nothing interesting is shown and you care about none of the characters, is a film well made because it looks like it costs a lot? No, this film was badly written and directed, let's face it.

It's a totally surreal movie that did remind me of "Delicatessen". Even the peculiar pastel colors are similar. The tale? A new maid starts working at a dilapidated boarding house - a pension - in Paris, in 1913, and she gets involved with a young German artist who lives there. Her relationship with him is the central part of the plot, but the other characters add subplots in their own strange ways. The people who live there are peculiar, the owners are peculiar, the situations are peculiar... but I got caught in it and came to enjoy the faintly claustrophobic atmosphere. Drama, touches of black humor, absurdity, love and betrayal, it's got it all. Not an absolute masterpiece but well worth seeing.

I watched the movie on DVD for the very first time yesterday, 2006-5-9. The movie seemed disjointed and confusing to me at times, and just did not sustain my interest (I paused it twice to check my e-mail). Mlle. Delpy was absolutely brilliant in two separate scenes with Dingwall: in the park and at the railroad station; these two scenes saved this movie for me. None of the other performers seemed too greatly inspired in their roles. Delpy was emotive, captivating, and with perfect dialogue throughout. Also on the positive side, I thought that the decoration of the scenes was well done, most remarkably the opening scene of the German infantry in the trench and then later the scene of the locomotives and the passenger coach at the railroad station. The picture post cards were very intriguing, with a real feel of the art of the period. I blame the root problems with this movie with one or more of the following: the director, the screenwriter or the editor. Watch this movie, if you are a J. Delpy fan ... pass on it, if you are not.