31/08/2007

Violence amongst youngsters and marginalisation certainly aren't new themes on the silver screen and the appalling bloodbath which appears in the Belgian movie Small Gods [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (International Critics' Week) probably won't shock the public any more than the rape involving US soldiers in Irak depicted in Brian De Palma's competition title, but the "dirty" and relentless images filmed by the Flanders-born brothers Karakatsanis (Dimitri is the scriptwriter-director and Nicolas the DoP) convey something the public will find hard to forget, something that comes from the urge to tackle a type of anxiety so universal it deserves to be exposed in the most graphic way.

The very personal style of Dimitri (who graduated at St. Lucas in Brussels) and the games of reflections and dark atmospheres created by equally promising Nicolas follow the flashback-riddled journey of three youths destiny cursed with an inability to be normal : David kidnaps Elena and, together with Sara (with whom he gradually develops a painful complicity), starts on a journey which will bring Elena back to her awful past.

The above-mentionned unbearable scene is so profoundly anchored in our history that it goes beyond what could also be found in Terrence Malick's Badlands and Claude Chabrol's The Ceremony and bestows upon its characters symbolic and poetic qualities which make them appear like "small gods of death". Not bad for a mostly self-financed debut feature – which has already convinced the Benelux-based distributor A-Film and the French sales outfit Insomnia.

It is also worth underlining the excellent performance of the three actors (the icon of the new generation of Belgian filmmakers Titus de Voogdt and the newcomers Steffi Peeters and Louiza Van de Woestijne).

(Translated from Italian)