17/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: Presented in the opening slot of the Generation Kplus line-up, Domien Huyghe’s sensitive and ultra-topical debut movie is a brilliant and sincere coming-of-age tale about bereavement

Lena is twelve years old, she likes skateboarding, she listens to Angèle, she’s pretty good at sailing, and she has a great time with her best friend. She’s enjoying a joyful and carefree childhood by the sea, with her feet in the water and her head in the stars. But this light-heartedness is obliterated by an accident involving her father’s fishing boat in which the latter disappears overboard with his two crew members. While people try their best to process these tragic disappearances, Lena’s rage crystallises into a single mission: hunting down an underwater monster which she believes responsible for the disaster. Sea Sparkle [+see also:
trailer
interview: Domien & Wendy Huyghe
interview: Thibaud Dooms
film profile], a portrait of an adolescent against a backdrop of grief - devised by Domien Huyghe and his sister Wendy Huyghe, and largely based on their own personal experience - is being presented in a world premiere in the opening slot of the 73rd Berlinale’s Generation Kplus line-up.

Domien and Wendy Huyghe (who co-penned the screenplay, together with seasoned Flemish screenwriter Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem) invest incredible energy into this ultra-topical, moving and brilliant tale about the very particular nature of filial bereavement as  experienced in adolescence. Even though she’s always been surrounded by people, Lena suddenly and inexplicably feels all alone, misunderstood and even betrayed sometimes. As her loved ones try to grieve as best they can, Lena sinks into denial. Overwhelmed by anger, she tries to find a means to expel it, and she does so by fighting and by projecting her demons onto a fabricated monster in the deep. Lena sets herself the mission of opening people’s eyes to the imaginary beast’s responsibility for the tragedy, hoping to clear her father of any suspicion in the process.

This battle of hers traps her in a bubble, as shrewdly emphasised by the film’s sound design, and imbues the story with a slightly fantastical air, as if Lena - who’s no longer able to bear the new world opening up before her, marked by her father’s absence - were trying to escape into another fantastical universe.

Lena’s trajectory also underlines the fact that to grieve is to accept that she’ll never know her father as a person, adult to adult, that he will only ever have been a parent to her. It’s also to understand that our parents aren’t necessarily heroes, or that they aren’t only heroes; they’re also fallible beings, despite the love that we feel for them. Ultimately, it’s a double loss which Lena has to process: the notion of the perfect father, and the actual father she loved. Lena’s features and energy come courtesy of remarkable young actress Saar Rogiers, a wonderful acting revelation who lends body and sincerity to the film, which also boasts an excellent cast overall, as well as well-balanced and convincing acting direction.

Sea Sparkle is produced by A Private View, who also opened Generation Kplus last year with Mascha Halberstad’s Oink [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mascha Halberstad
film profile], which, much like Sea Sparkle, was also co-produced by Viking Film: they’re clearly a winning duo in European cinema for young audiences. The movie is sold worldwide by LevelK and will be distributed by Paradiso in Belgium, where it’s due for release on 29 March.

(Translated from French)