Close

Wow!. I'm glad I didn't know what this film was about, before watching it. The only thing I knew beforehand, is that it was about the close friendship between two young boys. I recommend watching this film with little to no knowledge of what happens, but make sure you have plenty of tissues ready to use. The acting performances of everyone in the movie is top shelf, but the two lead actors are truly exceptional, especially the lead actor "Eden Dambrine".

It's been a long time since a film has had such a BIG and profoundly deep impact on myself. It touched a part of my heart I had completely forgotten about, from my own childhood. I suspect many people will have a similar reaction. I'll be thinking about this movie for weeks to come and look forward to buying it on Blu-ray disc, when it is released. This brilliant movie has earnt a place in my top ten desert island collection of best movies ever. I can't recommend this movie enough - if you have a Heart, watch it. Highschool kids should watch this movie and discuss it afterwards.

You're inseparable and enjoy your time together, you're best friends and will remain so, always forever, but as you start a new school year, there are those who joke and stare, as if there's more to being friends, that gives you pleasure. So you create a bit of distance to get space, but now your friend has got the feeling he's displaced, he's upset and quite distressed, feels let down and cast adrift, it takes you to a place, no teenage boy (or girl or non-binary) should face.

Great performances in a challenging piece of film that may get you thinking of how you behaved when you were that age and whether the events portrayed relate.

2022 NZIFF. Probably should have waited until tomorrow to do a more measured review, but watch this film for the acting masterclass from Eden Dambrine (Leo). To say so much with expressive eyes without uttering a sound; excitement, beguile, love, sorrow, terrible loss - one can't look away. What a find, and congratulations to the casting director. As for the film, kudos to the director Lukas Dhont for such exquisite framing, sequencing, colours and sound. Special mention to the flower farm hard work scenes, and the scenes following the boys at speed, whether running on a beach or through the flower farm, or on their bikes - amazing tracking. The topic of unbearable loss creating misplaced guilt is dealt with a sensitive directorial hand, and the maturity shown by a thirteen year old to navigate such a role must not go unrecognised. Also need to mention Gustav De Waele as the best friend of Leo and Igor van Dessel, Leo's brother - both are brilliant in support, and I also loved the subtle role of Leo's mother, played by Léa Drucker. But this is Eden Dambrine's film.

Normally I don't go to this kind of flicks but it has been said that this Belgian entry for the Oscars could win. So on a rainy night in a foreign city I went to see it at a very small venue.

The title says exactly what you get. A story about two teenage friends getting close somehow in their friendship and people do ask themselve if they are in love. But not only that is close. The way it was shot also brings you close to the characters.

I can tell without spoiling that at the end of this flick I heard a lot of crying at the venue. Why? Because most people do recognise thelselve in the storyline.

Excellent performances by the teenagers knowing that they weren't actors at all.

Okay, I agrre, Belgium is on the road for an Oscar.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 3,5/5 Comedy 0/5.

Lukas Dhont is the name of one of Europe's most promising filmmakers, a director whose aesthetic goes right back to European classicists filmmakers such as Erik Rohmer. In Dhont's second feature, entitled Close, almost every strand of narrative is told through more or less disjointed scenes and segments, and every emotion and character development is implicit, often undercommunicated. The story is about two young friends from the Belgian countryside, Léo and Rémi, whose tightknit bond reaches a zenith the summer before they start secondary school. With new classes forming and hormones flowing, their special relationship is tested by means of peer pressure, conventions, and Léo's need for redefining himself and widening his horizons. This forces their pure, undefined love towards a definition that none of them have the maturity to outline.

Dhont had already made a name for himself with Girl in 2018, and his follow-up is equally hard-hitting, albeit arguably less obviously so. In Close, nothing is told or tackled head-on, instead we the audience is left with the task of deciphering and defining every single development. This is a form of moviemaking that had seemingly gone out of fashion in the post-streaming era, but which Dhont revitalizes emphatically here. His camerawork and patience with his actors is such that you become one with the characters. When his camera lingers on young Eden Dambrine as Léo, you're invited to a fusion between viewer and character; you become this young man and live out his predicament. If there ever was pure filmmaking, this is it. Which is why you also accept the small droplets of emotional manipulation that inevitably infuse the final part of the film.

Dhont's work is visually and narratively remarkable. But his most impressive feat with Close is how he has extracted masterclass performances out of his two inexperienced lead actors. The first third of the picture has a timelessness to it which is reminiscent of the Nouvelle Vague. And after the film's turning point, Eden Dambrine's expressive but understated face carries the story almost in a Brandoesque manner. His Léo is one of the best child performances in decades, and certainly on this side of the millennium, making Close a coming-of-age film for the ages.