De helaasheid der dingen

I saw this movie yesterday. I was drawn to it because it won the golden Amphora at the "Festival de Quend du film grolandais", an independent movie festival. Seeing the film poster with naked hairy guys cycling, I knew that I would have some fun but how far will they go? In fact, the movie alternates quite hilarious scenes with drunk people with more dramatic sequences. With this consideration, the movie is finally closer to English dramedies that are used to show working class characters and, finally, whatever strange they are, you feel some sympathy for those guys. It's quite comforting to see people who don't care about the others (or perhaps even about anything) but you also see that there are consequences. For sure, this movie is not about preventing the audience from drinking or about giving any lesson. Following the story of Gunther, you just follow the day to day life of a hillbilly family with its ups and downs (a little more ups in the movie). Like they say in "Les cahiers du cinema", Felix van Groeningen makes you love and care for these model people in the same manner as John Cassavetes was able to do. In a nutshell, go and see it (except if you are a feminist of course).

I know one shouldn't mix reviews with personal experiences, but when watching this film I couldn't help but constantly remember an anecdote that happened to me one New Year's morning in Brussels: trying to cure my party hangover with some friends in a bar, we observed a guy trying to cross the street with a crate of beer. Now the streets were all frozen over and the king had advised in his New Year's address to stay at home. Plus the roads in Brussels are caved in by traffic. So the weight of the crate kept the guy sliding towards the middle of the street. He could make it to either side without, but not with the crate. Nevertheless, he kept trying for over an hour to pull, shove or otherwise move the crate from where it was stuck - until he found the ingenious solution: He drank six bottles of beer on the spot, thereby sufficiently reducing the weight to pull the crate over - only that he got so drunk and spaced out in the process that he slipped and broke all of the bottles, so his whole effort came to naught.

This little story has nothing and everything to do with 'Misfortunates' which is chock full of incidents like this one. And as abundant films about losers and social misfits may be in Belgian/ Dutch cinema (like Aaltra, The Sexual Life of Belgians, Flodders, Spetters), this one takes the cake in every respect: the autobiographical story is perfectly adapted and wonderfully played. Its provides tons of utterly irrelevant, but amusing add-ons like when the Strubbes invite themselves over to an exiled Iranian couple to force them into watching a Roy Orbison concert because their TV's been repossessed. Like in my little story, one cannot help but somewhat admire the persistence of the Strubbe family to make their lives as dysfunctional as humanly possible, while one cannot ignore the destructiveness of it all.

If you like painfully real social dramedy, this one is for you; if your threshold for witnessing the lower recesses of human behavior isn't very high, you're likely to find 'Misfortunates' an extremely tasteless affair.

I attended the North American Premiere of "The Misfortunates" at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Director Felix van Groeningen introduced the film with a few caveats about the drunkenness and debauchery to come. He was correct. The film is filled with humor and pathos, presenting some painfully brutal characterizations of life in Belgium for a 13-year-old boy living in a house of alcoholics. Equal parts comedy and tragedy, "The Misfortunates" can be painful to watch at times but the payoff is worth it. Shot cinema verité style, the artful use of color and texture combined with copious amounts of bawdy humor make this film an audience favorite.

When you think of Belgium, many things might pop to your mind, but certainly not this harsh comedy-drama about the dysfunction that tops all disfunctions. The Strobbes, working (although almost nobody is working),class family consists of 4 loutish sons, stoic mother and the 13-year old son of one of the brothers, with more potential than all of them together. And there is almost nothing else but excessive drinking, and all the things that come with it. Cruelty, violence, hangover and such a waste of both lives and space. This is harsh picture of a family, that doesn't know how else to connect but through getting smashed. The scene that stands out is incredibly hard to watch. When the boys father comes from rehab for a weekend, healthier and stronger, his brothers slowly draw him back to the pit he tried to escape. Strange and disturbing movie, but I have a feeling one that you don't forget soon.

Known in France as La Merditude des choses, this is a film I've been hunting for ages and finally tracked down on a chilly summer day.

It's the story of a kid grown up, recounting his childhood in a small Belgian village with a dysfunctional family, sometimes filled with hope and joy, more often steeped in social misery and violence.

It's the kind of film that pulls a smile out of you, only to snatch it back before long. There's a bit of Strip-tease or Groland in this romanticized yet raw portrayal of broken, rough-around-the-edges characters who grapple with love and alcoholism, meltdowns and solidarity, all caught in their vices while trying to survive a monotony that's slowly killing them.

You laugh, sometimes. There are scenes so bizarre-like a nude bike race, a betting shop session with a kid that ends in a conga line with two dwarf barmaids, or a booze-fueled Tour de France with deliberately dizzying camera work. But every one of these moments hides something deeply, achingly sad.

It's as if Koen Mortier's Skunk softened up just enough to hook up with an old Kervern and Délépine flick. The story centers on this man who somehow escaped his circumstances and narrates his origins with a mix of disgust and nostalgia, aware that he was built on shaky foundations, yet equally clear-eyed about his present, which he views with almost the same lens. That realization might be the saddest part of the whole thing. The sordid, seen through innocent, childlike eyes, may not be worse than the banality of adulthood. Both chip away at the soul, but the nostalgia of the former makes it easier to hold onto.

It's a depressing film with beautiful things inside. Alcoholism is depicted raw and intense, the most brotherly moments are also the most fleeting, reflecting a life nobody really chose but has to live anyway, elevated by a literary narration that adds depth and insight to this mess-a child's view of the underside of a medal he never even got to win.

Superbly acted, smartly paced, striking a balance between darkness and levity, text and visuals, it's a fantastic surprise that'll stick with me for a while. Plus, it taught me some raunchy Dutch drinking songs I can't wait to belt out at three sheets to the wind on my next trip to Utrecht.