‘The Eight Mountains’ Film Review: Belgian Male-Bonding Drama Is Impressively Unsentimental

Mad Men, complete with coiffed hair and structured dresses.  in particular looks like she shopped in Jackie O's closet with her aquamarine blue dress and matching shoes. White gloves, green sunglasses, and a white straw pocketbook finish off her character's look. , meanwhile, will be blonde for the film, which was styled in a classic '60s bouffant updo.

Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are more than just friends and not at all lovers. At only 13 years of age, they’re too young for that – and what’s more, their bond transcends simple labels. First seen running through the lush meadows of rural Belgium, the duo share a complicity that is as natural and abundant as the late summer harvest.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticSPOILER ALERT: The penultimate paragraph of this review contains spoilers.Few of us are fortunate enough to have a friendship as intimate and effortless as the one shared by 13-year-old Belgian boys Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) in “Close.” That connection, and the responsibility that comes with it, is at the heart of Lukas Dhont’s sophomore feature, so subtle and sensitive in the first half, so devastatingly false from its tragic twist on. This beautifully evocative film, which hails from an openly queer director, offers as pure a portrait of innocent, innocuous same-sex affection as we’ve ever encountered on film.

Belgium’s Lukas Dhont takes a deserved step up to the Cannes Film Festival competition with Close, only his second film — a minimalist melodrama that shows a definite growth in visual style but may be confronting to some with its deliberately unhurried, Eric Rohmer-esque aesthetic. The international success of Dhont’s well-intentioned debut Girl, about a young trans-female ballet dancer, was somewhat blunted in the U.S., where G.L.A.A.D. amplified complaints of misrepresentation on behalf of the trans lobby. Close is a much safer proposition, but may yet sail into choppy waters with its themes of youth suicide.

For decades, Italian filmmakers dominated Cannes.If the 1960s saw Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti reign supreme, somehow the 1970s were even richer. Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi won shared top prizes in 1972, while for two consecutive years later that decade the Taviani brothers and then Ermanno Olmi hoisted Palmes across a border that sits just 40 miles away.This year’s lone competition title from an Italian director (the only other Italian language film, “The Eight Mountains,” comes courtesy of two Belgians), Mario Martone’s “Nostalgia” will probably not break that particular drought, but the Neapolitan director can take solace in another modest honor: Telling a story about mothers and sons, about gangsters and priests, and about a peculiar kind of longing for the past in a place where little has changed for hundreds of years, “Nostalgia” is a nigh perfect candidate to wave il Tricolore.Taking a thin amount of plot and stretching it as far and wide as it can go, the film itself is far from perfect, but it does benefit from “The Traitor” star Pierfrancesco Favino’s terrific lead performance as a man who learns the hard way that there’s no going home again.After forty years abroad, Felice (Favino, of course) returns to his native Naples a stranger in a familiar land.

Gregg Goldstein Belgian director Lukas Dhont is in rare company. His 2018 Un Certain Regard debut, “Girl,” won the Caméra d’Or and three more Cannes prizes, besting the number of first-time feature wins from the likes of Steven Soderbergh and Steve McQueen. And while his rise has come with some controversy, he earned a place in competition with the May 26 Lumière gala premiere of his sophomore effort, “Close.” The story of two 13-year-old boys whose powerful friendship ends when their relationship comes under scrutiny “started from a very personal place,” says the out director, who penned the script with “Girl” co-writer Angelo Tijssens.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who have directed a series of films notable for quiet naturalism, are a prime example of how at the Cannes Film Festival, familiarity breeds not contempt but contentment.Year after year, Cannes puts the Dardennes’ films in the Main Competition; they’ve made nine features since “Rosetta” in 1999, and every one of them has vied for Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or, with “Rosetta” and 2005’s “L’Enfant” winning and four others taking additional awards. The Dardennes now have a chance to make significant Cannes history by becoming the first directors to ever win the Palme for a third time.If they win for “Tori and Lokita,” which premiered in Cannes on Tuesday, they’ll also set a new record for the longest time elapsed between Cannes wins, with the 17-year gap since “L’Enfant” breaking the record of 14 years between Shohei Imamura’s wins for “The Ballad of Narayama” and The Eel.”But familiarity may also be working against the Dardennes at this point.

You can pretty much bet that whenever the Dardenne brothers show up with a new film in Cannes, it will walk away with some sort of prize. That has been the case since 1999 when their first competition film, Rosetta swooped in at the last minute and won the Palme d’Or and Best Actress. They won a second Palme d’Or in 2005 for The Child, the Grand Jury Prize in 2011 for Kid With A Bike, Screenplay in 2008 for Lorna’s Silence, and Director in 2019 for Young Ahmed. No matter what the jury, the Dardennes continue to impress, yet none of their films has ever brought them an Oscar nomination. 2011’s Two Days, One Night did get a surprise Best Actress nomination for Marion Cotillard but that has been it.

Rock Werchter, which is still set to continue.“The desire to experience festivals in all their glory again after two years of silence is great,” Herman Schueremans, who promotes the festival alongside Live Nation Belgium, said in a statement (per IQ).“But there are a few dampers on the revelry. Consumer confidence is lost, the live entertainment sector is struggling with staff shortages, production costs are skyrocketing.”The majority of acts originally scheduled to perform at Rock Werchter Encore have now been integrated into sister festival TW Classic, which takes place on June 25.Florence + The Machine, The Kid Laroi, The Specials, and Sky Ferreira are among the acts that have joined the TW Classic bill.

here.Suede, made up of Brett Anderson, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, Richard Oakes and Neil Codling, went “back to basics” for this new record according to a press statement.They hired “a rehearsal studio in deserted Kings Cross to collect a key, hump their own gear, set up and start playing,” before recording at London’s Konk studios.The band have given fans the first taster of the album via new single called ‘She Still Leads Me On’, which Anderson wrote to his late mother.Later this evening, Suede will debut the brand new single ‘She Still Leads Me On’ live on stage at a headline performance in Belgium at Brussels’ Cirque Royal. Fans can livestream the performance here from 9pm.Check out the new single here:‘Autofiction’ TracklistingSpeaking about ‘Autofiction’, frontman Brett Anderson said: “‘Autofiction’ is our punk record. No whistles and bells.

Lukas Dhont’s Cannes debut was also his debut feature, Girl, which ran in Un Certain Regard in 2018. A stunning start for the young Belgian, the movie brought him the Caméra d’Or and myriad other prizes down the line. Now, four years later, Dhont is returning to Cannes with his follow-up, Close, which has landed him in the main competition.

Christopher Vourlias Estonia received a splashy introduction to the limelight in 2019, when it played host to Christopher Nolan’s time-bending sci-fi drama “Tenet.” The biggest production to shoot in the Baltic nation to date, Warner Bros.’ $200 million blockbuster landed Estonia squarely on the map for international film and television productions.Though the coronavirus pandemic arrived not long after principal photography wrapped, the industry hasn’t skipped a beat since, with both domestic and international production — drawn by a cash rebate of up to 30% —continuing apace. This year, says Estonian Film Institute CEO Edith Sepp, there are no signs of slowing down.“The Estonian cash rebate has been booming more than ever in the first half of this year,” she says.

Child grooming is a tough subject to tackle, but Belgian director Emmanuelle Nicot takes a sensitive approach in her Critics Week feature Love According To Dalva. The key here is perspective: almost everything is shown from the point of view of a victim who has been taken into care, and who doesn’t realize she has been abused. Watching the truth slowly dawn upon her gives this film real tension, while also providing the possibility of recovery and enlightenment.

For his most subdued film yet, Belgian director Felix van Groeningen, along with co-directing partner Charlotte Vandermeersch take to the Italian Alps for a decades-spanning story of friendship. Following Groeningen’s solo effort, 2018’s “Beautiful Boy,” “The Eight Mountains” is a quiet return to form with its stunning mountain scenery and strong performances from Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, but this elegiac personal epic is far too languid for its length.

After breaking out internationally in 2012 with his Oscar-nominated drama The Broken Circle Breakdown, and making his Hollywood debut in 2018 with Beautiful Boy, Felix van Groeningen makes his Competition debut in Cannes with The Eight Mountains, perhaps the most understated film of his career so far.

K.J. Yossman “Game of Thrones” star Michelle Fairley is set to appear in Bouli Lanners feature film “Nobody Has To Know.” Lanners will write, direct and co-star in the project.Fairley, who has also appeared in “Suits” and “Gangs of London,” plays Millie MacPherson in the film. She takes care of Philippe Haubin, a middle-aged man suffering from memory loss following a stroke.

EXCLUSIVE: Omar Sy’s star continues to burn bright on Netflix, as the French star’s thriller The Takedown comfortably held on to top spot in the streamer’s non-English language film chart.

Spain, where he has been sentenced to prison accused of writing lyrics that praise terror groups and insult the royal family.The 28-year-old rapper, whose real name is Jose Miguel Arenas Beltran and who has been living in exile in Belgium since 2018, faces prison sentences in Spain totaling three-and-a-half years.Francis Clarysse, a Ghent prosecutor, told The Associated Press that the prosecution now has 24 hours to decide whether to appeal the decision to Belgium's highest court, the court of cassation. Tuesday's ruling marked the fourth time the Spanish judicial authorities' requests for extradition were denied.Clarysse said the latest appeal was declared “unfounded, meaning no extradition is possible."Valtonyc’s case has become popular in Spain among organizations who claim Spanish authorities are cracking down on free speech.