D'Ardennen

Dave and Kenneth are brothers and are on the wrong side of the law. They attempt a robbery and it all goes to hell in a hand cart, but Dave manages to escape leaving his brother to take the rap – and he does.

Move on four years and Kenneth is out and he wants to make up for lost time. He also cant accept that his brother has had the temerity to grow up and start acting like an adult. He also wants back with his ex- girlfriend but she has other ideas and he involvement with both brothers becomes pivotal to how things spiral.

Now this is gritty but it is a lot of psychological pain before the actual real pain kicks in. The acting is great and the cinematography very well done and it is in Flemish, but this is in the Antwerp dialect which has upset a few observers as it is a bit on the 'common' side. However it also adds to the realism of the piece – all in all though a very commendable film indeed.

"Kenny" (Kevin Janssens) and brother "Dave" (Jeroen Perceval) are involved in an abortive burglary that sees the latter escape leaving the former to spend the next four years in jail. When he is released, the siblings are reunited with their mother and for a while, bygones seem to be bygones with "Kenny" even seeming to forgive his ex "Sylvie" (Veerle Baetens) who now has a child and who has also taken up a job pole-dancing for a Moroccan night-club owner. It's round about now that we start to see some cracks appear in the brotherly relationship. "Kenny" finds out who the father of the child is, loses his temper, then things are exacerbated by some thugs who visit their workplace and one of those is accidentally killed. Unsurprisingly, they get fired and then have to take the corpse to the remote rural home of ex-cellmate "Stef" (Jan Bijvoet) and his pal "Joyce" (Sam Louwyck). Ostensibly they are just going to get shot of the body, but their relationship only gets worse and "Dave" begins to wonder if he can, actually, trust his brother. Robin Pront does try to mix up the narrative a bit, it's gritty and dark at times and I thought Janssens made a decent fist of his "Kenny" character. The rest of the film, though, isn't really up to much. The dialogue is strained and a bit contrived, the direction style staccato and it really falls to the eccentricities of "Stef" and "Joyce" to breath a little quirkiness into what is otherwise all just a bit of a dreary denouement. I didn't hate it, but I doubt I'd watch it again.

'D'Ardennen' is Robin Pront's first feature film, but I'd have sworn it was made by a very experienced film maker. This is a well-made, exciting, and ambitious movie - a successful accomplishment in every respect.

Pront hasn't made it easy for himself. To mention just one thing: the film is spoken entirely in the dialect of the Flemish city Antwerp. That means that even here in Flanders, it is shown with subtitles. Commercially, that's a drawback, but it makes the movie much more authentic.

The film is built on a very strong screenplay. Two brothers commit a holdup, but only one of them manages to escape. The other one is caught and convicted, and is released from jail four years later. After the reunion, he slowly pulls his brother down in a spiral of violence and crime. His former girlfriend plays a crucial part in his self-destructive behaviour. The tense relationship between the two brothers is characterized by unspoken reproaches on the one hand and strong family ties on the other. The girl is the reason for the dramatic developments that lead to a bloody climax.

Not only is this a very intelligent thriller, it is also a great movie from a cinematographic point of view. Pront and his cinematographer are very good in filming scenes through mirrors or windows, creating surprising and original effects. The crucial reunion between the two brothers is filmed in the rear view mirror of a car, accentuating the emotional distance that has grown between them. When they are having a meal in a restaurant, they are filmed form both sides of the window pane, with raindrops creating a nice visual effect. The locations are very well chosen: Antwerp is shown as an industrial wasteland, and the snowy hills of the Ardennes are filmed as a creepy place with weird inhabitants.

The film slowly works its way towards a bloody apotheosis, which was a bit overdone to my taste. The story didn't really need the considerable body count, above all because at the end there is a surprising twist with much dramatic effect. But this is a minor flaw in an otherwise outstanding film.

Just like Oscar-nominated Bullhead a few years ago, this is a Flemish film with international appeal. Too bad Belgium has already selected Jaco Van Dormael's last film for the Academy Awards.

"The Ardennes" (2015 release from Belgium; 96 min.) brings the story of brothers Dave and Kenny. As the movie opens, Dave is seen scrambling and driving off madly with a woman, while Kenny is not so lucky, and gets arrested. In a quick montage, Kenny is sentenced to 7 years in jail, his girlfriend Sylvie attends AA/NA meetings and is now 2 years clean, and Dave is working at a carwash. Then after 4 years, Kenny is released, and Dave picks him up. Kenny is disappointed that Sylvie isn't there to meet him, but we in the meantime know that Sylvie is now with Dave, and pregnant (all unbeknownst to Kenny). At his mom's urging, Dave is able to get Kenny a job at the car wash. Will Kenny find out about Dave and Sylvie? Will Kenny remain on the straight-and-narrow? At this point we are a good 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more pf the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: in the initial opening credits, the movie is announced as "Belgian cinema from Flanders" (which is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). In fact, the movie is set in and around Antwerp, my original home town, and all of the characters speak with a pronounced Antwerp dialect accent. Writer-director Robin Pront previously was the producer of the Oscar-nominated "Bullhead". Here he explores another crime drama, and along with it a complicated relationship between 2 brothers. The movie is highly stylish in both its photography and camera angles, adding to the overall sense of dread that something very bad may be going down. Veerle Batens as Sylvie delivers yet another top-notch performance, as does Jeroen perceval as Dave. But the intense performance of Kevin Janssens as the unstable Kenny is what really lifts this movie. Last but certainly not least, there is an outstanding electronic score, courtesy of Flemish composer Hendrik Willemyns, whom I had never heard of before. Bottom line, this is a dark crime drama which I ended up enjoying a lot more than I expected. Incidentally, this was Belgium's official entry for the 2017 Best Foreign Language Movie Oscar (it was not nominated).

While "The Ardennes" played at a number of film festivals (it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival) and was officially released in the US in early 2017, it really wasn't until Film Movement released it as part of its Movie of the Month releases that this gained a wider audience. This is how I finally was able to see it. So glad I did (and not just because I originally hail from Belgium). If you are in the mood for a dark crime drama, I'd readily recommend you check this out and draw your own conclusion. I think you will be quite pleased. "The Ardennes" is a WINNER.

As a Belgian we might have different opinions about this movie. I thought it was a well made movie with a good story. But most of it's charm is that is raw, straight out of life, because of the use of the dialect language. It's in Flemish, more specifically in the Antwerp dialect. In Belgium almost every town has it's own dialect and for some it is difficult to understand but the dialect from Antwerp is one of those everybody understands in Belgium. Not like the dialect from East or West Flanders that only people from there understand. So I can get that if you don't speak or understand those dialects that the movie looses a bit of it's value. Even though I thought, seeing the budget that is quite high for a Belgian production, the movie has a good story with good actors and a couple of surprising twists. To me it is with Bull Head one of the better Belgian movies from the last decade.