With Like a Fortress, which premiered last spring at Visions du Réel, in the Burning Lights Competition, and is now part of the National Competition of the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF), young Belgian filmmaker Lou Colpé delivers a moving documentary which takes the form of a grief journal exploring the ties that bind and support us.

The film opens on the silent vision of a celebration taking place inside and outside a house, a joyful, lively, whirling party filmed ever so discreetly – meaning not so much in secret as with a light, tentative touch – which quickly appears for what it is: an act of resistance against sorrow. These shots are the first images the filmmaker recorded after the death of her partner, with whom she shared this house before he died on a road in Corsica while they were on holiday. The house thus becomes her refuge, a protective shell she shuts herself in (sometimes against the advice of her loved ones) as if to summon some kind of magic force which would help her through the mourning process. Together with her, from within the house, we see the seasons go by as she settles in her new-found solitude but also fills it with friends, whether in person when they are visiting or online from afar, which gradually helps her forge or strengthen ties that anchor and belay her – just like in rock climbing. These human bonds may also be what keeps the refuge from turning into a mausoleum. In this journey, time is a primary component, operating without forcing things to go on despite everything, instead allowing us to notice what remains of the life that was before, like nail polish gradually disappearing as the nails grow, or a parked car turned into a symbolic memorial.

To mirror the silence of absence, the voice of the grieving filmmaker stays on mute and the pace is set by just a few sentences plastered across the screen, standing in for a proper voice-over. These facts, dates, fragments of intimacy and lists, too, bring together the immensity of the loss and the many small things in its orbit: the gifts received at the funeral, all the odd things people do in the face of grief. Throughout this long stretch of time and this arduous, uneven process, the director’s friends – often less through words than through their mere presence and their way of bringing some life back in hers – serve both as the framework holding her up and as ramparts protecting her castle during the siege. With the utmost delicacy, through both the tragedy of death and that of all the possibilities suddenly cut short but also through the power of resilience, Like a Fortress observes rather than it explains, prompting us to wonder how we ourselves inhabit various spaces, including our friendships. By leaning on written words rather than spoken ones, showing the life cycles of the nature surrounding the house, emphasizing the symbolic dimension of objects as well as the crucial role of non-judgmental, deeply loving presences in helping the bereaved transcend loss, this intimate, generous documentary accurately depicts what we do to survive until we become able to really live again.

Like a Fortress was produced by Belgian outfit Dérives, with the Centre de l’Audiovisuel à Bruxelles as co-producer.