Yes, it is kind of “depaysant” to go and see a Belgian film in a cinema theatre in Los Angeles. In particular if this film is not shown once during a festival or a special event but it has been released – even if not extensively – in different parts of the US (New York, Los Angeles and Austin, TX). However this can happen, especially if a film is nominated to the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture, a honour which only five Belgian films had in the past and none of them brought the Oscar home.
Bullhead, this year’s nominee and the film I had the great pleasure to see last night, might therefore become the first ever Oscar in the history of Belgian cinema.
It is a very tough, ambitious and intense film which would be unfair to simply classify as a “noir”. Bullhead has many narrative layers. It is a thrilling crime story about the illegal commerce and use of hormones in the farming milieu. It is also a stark and brave denunciation of the cultural and social poverty of some Belgian province, especially across the so-called “frontiére linguistique“, the linguistic border between Flanders and Wallonia which in certain areas and in certain moments is as solid as a brick wall. And finally, it is a sharp and accurate psychological portrait of many characters and in primis of Jacky, the protagonist, magnificently interpreted by Matthias Schoenaerts (I do not want to exaggerate but sometimes he reminded me Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull”). Possibly the only weakness of this film is its complexity. In the first 15 minutes so many characters and stories are introduced – perhaps too curtly – and for the audience it is not evident to follow the plot. But exactly when one is about to give up, Michael Roskam, the writer and director, is extremely good at calling back the audience and definitely plunging everybody in his film by introducing the shocking past of Jacky in a very timely and dramatic manner.
Bullhead is a tough film also aesthetically. There is not much of beauty or light or color in it with two notable exceptions: the fantastic Belgian skies used as transitions – “un ciel si gris qu’il faut lui pardonner” as Jacques Brel used to sing- and the splendid final view on Liege by night which from the high floor of Lucia’s apartment shows only her best part.
The Belgian press does not seem to believe in Bullhead victory tomorrow – for example, I could not spot any article about the film in today’s online edition of “Le Soir”- and competition, especially from “A Separation”, is fierce. However, I would bet more than one dollar -or better one euro- on the first ever Belgian Oscar…