The Broken Circle

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Movie
German title The Broken Circle
Original title The Broken Circle Breakdown
Country of production Belgium , Netherlands
original language Dutch
Publishing year 2012
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Felix Van Groeningen
script Carl Joos ,
Felix Van Groeningen
production Dirk Impens
Arnold Heslenfeld
Laurette Schillings
Frans van Gestel
music Bjorn Eriksson
camera Ruben Impens
cut Nico Leunen
occupation

The Broken Circle (Original title: The Broken Circle Breakdown ) is a drama film that thematizes the reaction of parents after the loss of their child. Felix Van Groeningen's film won the Panorama Audience Award at the 2013 Berlinale . The plot is based on the play of the same name by Johan Heldenbergh , who plays the male lead in the film.

action

The bluegrass singer Didier falls in love with the tattoo artist Elise. They spend a passionate time on his farm until Elise unexpectedly becomes pregnant. From then on, the two of them share their lives with Maybelle, their little daughter. Her luck between the cattle and the bluegrass band seems to be perfect, as the diagnosis of leukemia shakes the young family.

A special feature of the narrative structure is that the events are not presented chronologically. In the first few minutes of the film, the viewer witnesses the parents' conversation with the doctor Maybelles before they learn how Didier and Elise met each other in the first place. The country ballads performed live, sung in front of an audience by Didier and Elise, are a driving part of the narrative content, comment on the inner plot on the emotional level and form a kind of red thread on the level of the emotions told.

criticism

In the current reviews after the film opened in German cinemas, some critics particularly praise the performance of the two protagonists and the camera work as well as the “excellent editing”. The film magazine Cinema emphasizes their “expressiveness” on its website, which often replaces “narrative content and emotions with facial expressions or symbolic gestures”.

Also critic.de the "credible and honest interaction" highlights of the two main characters, the film's often very "intense closeness to the audience" owe. The film tries to capture in its images that which cannot be expressed: “the boundless anger and despair of having to watch one's own child die”. The "flood of images" creates "compassion without becoming too sentimental."

The world speaks of a "cinematic artfully portrayed misfortune" that hits you as a viewer "with great emotional impact" so that in the end you leave the cinema "as if wounded". The film's “special emotional arc” resembles a “melody” that “does not create a simple downward curve from happy getting to know each other to later living apart, but a real soundscape of reverberant, overlapping sensations”. It also remains "the inspiration for great feelings that no later horror can drive away".

In its film review, Der Spiegel refers in a similar way to the “tragedies” that “The Broken Circle” has in store for Didier, Elise and Maybelle and that “went to and beyond the limits of what is humanly bearable”. For a long time there has been “no such beautiful film about life and love like this one” that could sweep you away.

Critic.de also praises the harmonious coherence of the musically performed live song interludes, which donate a little "consolation" in the face of blind fate. Similarly, it is said in the world that the film is "unbearable in its sadness if it weren't for the music". The recurring appearances of Didier and Elise's band give the film a "framework that the viewer can hold on to when waves of emotion threaten to overwhelm them". The music sounds "with its unique mixture of melancholy and optimism, as if the most varied experiences of joy and sadness had flowed into it" and fits this film "as if it had just been created" - "to resonate with it" creates "beneficial Consolation ".

The Frankfurter Rundschau also speaks in its review of the song classics in this film, which would harmonize “so wonderfully” with the “highly emotional and haunted fragments of life” in “The Broken Circle”. However, the “wonderful songs” would sometimes seem like “the emotional glue to the already highly emotional scenes” in the film. According to the criticism of the Frankfurter Rundschau , Van Groeningen does not succeed in creating an ensemble play that is coherent down to the smallest minor character in the constant play of the chapel in the death scenes , because the couple seem too "isolated".

Critic. In their reviews of the film, de and Der Spiegel also go into the narrative principle of “The Broken Circle”, which, according to critic.de, “consistently turns against the classic narrative logic of tragedy” and completely breaks with the chronology of events. However, critic.de criticizes the "clumsy polemics" that arise from the mixing of scenes of mourning for Maybelle with the television images of September 11th and the television appearance of George Bush. According to critic.de , the "balancing act between individual fate and world politics" claimed in "The Broken Circle" failed again when Didier tried "with awkward gestures" to establish a connection between Bush's reserve towards stem cell research and Maybelle's death. The arc on the "strange sideline America, which the film is apparently trying to deconstruct " is "stretched too far" and repeatedly botches "the jump from the micro to the macro level of the narrative".

Der Spiegel also takes a critical view of the associative narrative framework of the film. The Spiegel film review states : “Not that everything is perfect: the consistently non-linear narrative structure gets a little out of step in the second half. And the occasional excursions into the ethics discussion about stem cell research seem neither natural nor credible. But these are problems that are pretty easy to howl away here. "

In its review of the film, the TAZ mainly criticized the lack of credibility of the milieu portrayed in the film. “The Broken Circle” tries hard to “gainattractiveness from its subcultural - proletarian setting ”. With regard to the use of music, this was essentially "quite good", apart from the duplication of what was happening on the screen and the song lyrics; the concerts of Elise, Didier and their band had "something rousing". However, Van Groeningen does not succeed in “really getting involved in the milieu and accordingly staging it in a credible way”, since the film is limited to “claiming it as a backdrop”. Elise's “non-fading tattoos” are by no means the only thing that cannot be said of this fiction . The film ignores the desirable "appreciation of the physical conditions and loyalty to the material" and is therefore ultimately unable to "respect the pain and suffering of the characters". The TAZ also criticizes the narrative logic and dramaturgy of the film in the second half: “Once the dramaturgical knot is tied as tightly as it was after the half of“ The Broken Circle ”, it is as good as hopeless to find an exit from the narrative. There is a solution, but it has something mechanical: The first catastrophe is outdone by a second. "

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cinema.de: film review [1]
  2. ^ Critic.de: Film criticism
  3. ↑ The infinitely sad melody of unhappy love . In: Die Welt , April 25, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  4. ↑ Belgian hit movie "The Broken Circle": Things are crappy . In: Der Spiegel , April 25, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  5. ^ Critic.de: Film criticism
  6. ↑ The infinitely sad melody of unhappy love . In: Die Welt , April 25, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  7. ↑ Maybe God is missing . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , April 25, 2013. Accessed January 1, 2014.
  8. ^ Critic.de: Film criticism
  9. ↑ Belgian hit movie "The Broken Circle": Things are crappy . In: Der Spiegel , April 25, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  10. ^ Bluegrass in the Flemish Province . In: TAZ , April 25, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  11. ↑ Nominations for the European Film Awards 2013 at europeanfilmawards.eu, November 9, 2013 (English; accessed December 5, 2013).