Les Ardennes

'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.

"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.

Rumours were out that this was a brutal flick. Have seen it I can say that I can understand that some will have difficulty with the fight scene's. It's brutal but it never becomes gory or messy. But still this is a flick that rises above the mediocre Belgian flicks.

Even as it is spoken in the Antwerp language this time it didn't bother me because the two brothers were low life so it's normal that they can't talk decent. The acting from Kevin Janssens (Kenneth) is really excellent, to say the least, all characters were perfectly type cast and all acting is high standard.

People can't be changed and that's what this flick shows with a twist at the end. A must see.

Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

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.

Belgian cinema has gotten more and more ambitious in this past decade, and that newfound self esteem certainly paved the way for something like "D'Ardennen". This is the kind of movie that takes guts to make, particularly when you're working on a shoestring budget. It starts of very slowly, but you really need the meandering (okay...boring) first act to appreciate what follows. Director Robin Pront gradually makes his characters more insane as the movie progresses, and plays with your expectations beautifully. The two brothers this movie revolves around seem like small time crooks, dumb guys who are down on their luck but good at heart. When you're proved wrong, it hits you like a sledgehammer. In the end, you're treated to one of the most messed- up plot twists I've seen in years. Nobody left that theatre smiling, nobody was even talking. If you can achieve that, you've written a pretty amazing and gripping ending. "D'Ardennen" is occasionally marketed as a cross between the Dardenne brothers and Tarantino, which is incredibly inaccurate: actually it's not like anything else I've ever seen, and just for that it deserves a lot of credit.