A nominee for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar, Belgian director Felix van Groeningen's melodrama of love and loss, The Broken Circle Breakdown, is lifted by its bluegrass score.
You didn't know about the Belgian bluegrass scene? Well, now you will.
Based on a play co-written by lead actor Johan Heldenbergh, this is the story of Elise (Veerle Baetens) and Didier (Johan Heldenbergh). They fall in love at first sight, make music and a daughter together, and then have their lives thrown into chaos and their faith tested when, seven years later, their daughter Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse) is diagnosed with cancer. Didier is a modern-day cowboy who renovates a farmhouse by day and plays banjo in his bluegrass band at night. Elise is a tattoo-covered free spirit who joins him on stage.
The music serves as an emotional counterpoint to the increasingly melodramatic heaviness of the story and manages to save the film from its tearjerking tendencies. Flashing back and forth in time between the hospital in Ghent, where Maybelle is undergoing chemotherapy, and the couple's first meeting, the narrative uses the songs as bookends .
Baetens and Heldenbergh have a natural, easygoing chemistry that keeps the film moving along, but also makes its second half a little hard to take due to the inability of the filmmakers to adequately deal with the trap they've set themselves, and which necessitates a change in tone that jars significantly with the earlier parts of the story.
Groeningen's direction holds for the most part and comes alive during the performances of the songs, which are ultimately the strongest parts of the film.
Like the music that it celebrates, this a story of love, loss, family and struggles with God that you can't help being moved by.
- 'The Broken Circle Breakdown' opens at cinemas today
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