At last - the gripping new suspense thriller from writer/director Lucas Belvaux, who with his extraordinary La Trilogie triptych was the discovery of the 2003 Festival.
Living in Leige, a Belgian industrial town that’s slipping into redundancy, three friends - Patrick, Robert & Jean-Pierre, all unemployed - can only look on impotently as their lives slip away. Yet when Marc is released from prison, they hit upon an amateurish plan to get the money needed to buy Patrick’s wife (Natacha Régnier) a new moped: armed-robbery. But will fortune smile, for once, upon the little guy? Or will the status quo prove inescapable?
Like a cross between the politically-conscious social realism of Ken Loach and the gritty underworld sagas of Jean-Pierre Melville, Belvaux’s latest feature is remarkable: the drama is imbued with a powerful sense of its setting (the factories, the pubs, the dismal public housing) and peopled by characters for whom the viewer cannot help but care passionately. Filmed with economy and grace, and always managing to glimpse beauty amidst the ugly industrial landscape, Belvaux evokes a blighted yet fascinating human landscape.
France 2006 - Thriller, Drama (116 mins)
In French with English Subtitles
Director: Lucas Belvaux
Script: Lucas Belvaux
Cast: Eric Caravaca, Lucas Belvaux, Natacha Régnier
Sessions:
| Palace Academy Twin, Paddington | MON 12 MAR | 8:50 PM | | | Palace Norton St, Leichhardt | THU 15 MAR | 8:30 PM | |
Palace Norton St, Leichhardt | MON 19 MAR | 8:40 PM | | | Palace Academy Twin, Paddington | TUE 20 MAR | 8:30 PM | |