“Belgica” drunk electro and hops – The World

Le Monde | 01/03/2016 at 9:39 • Updated 01/03/2016 at 10:11 | By Thomas Sotinel

the opinion of the” world. “- to see

Belgica , it remains at the end of the projection, logically, that the collage of images, sounds and sensations that are preserved after a drunken night. If the film bears the name of a country (and we will return to this metonymy), it must be remembered that this variation of “Belgium” is first a brand of beer. And here this mark means a harbor, a bar in the city of Ghent, the main decoration of the fifth feature film by Felix Van Groeningen.

For Magritte, the European Film Awards, the film can to already claim the trophy for alcohol. Yet this night crossing the long course – frantic years over which two brothers find themselves, lose themselves in a succession of paroxysms distorted by psychotropic plants, hops poppy, through coca – can not be reduced to excess.

Tragedy distorted

Behind the haze of alcohol and drugs is clearly draw two figures mundane and beautiful, two brothers that the prospect of ever-changing setting this scene, in turn, as heroes, tiny patriarchs or worthy heirs of Goodfellas , Martin Scorsese (1990) . Jo and Frank are the Belgica a beautiful utopia part-time (day, it is not very shiny) doomed to shipwreck. Their interpreters, respectively Stef Aerts and Tom Vermeir embody the raw desire to break the chains of daily life – which gives the film an energy proportional to that of the director – of those …