European Films

Crossover hits from Flanders are rare and Flemish working-class romantic comedies even less so, but director Christophe van Rompaey may have actually made both when he made his feature film debut Aanrijding in Moscou (Moscow, Belgium). Especially during its first hour, the Flemish box-office sensation toys with cliché material with such an assured sense of direction and such a strong screenplay that it simply is a pleasure to watch. The closing 40-odd minutes do not sustain this sense of wonderment over the near-perfect almost-familiar, but thanks in large part to a wonderful cast led by Barbara Sarafian the film is still something that might light up screens elsewhere in Europe. The film is part of the Critics’ Week selection here at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

Safarian is Matty, a fierce fortysomething whose life seems to come apart after a minor collision (the "aanrijding" of the Flemish title) with a Belgian truck transporting Italian lollipops. The 29-year-old redhead driver Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet) has not only bruised her car but also her sense of self.

 

Her art teacher husband Werner (Johan Heldenbergh) is trying to work out whether he prefers Matty to one of his 22-year-old students, while their three children are trying to figure out where they stand in relation to the opportunities and pratfalls of puberty. As Johnny worms his way into the heart of Matty and the lives of the other members of this dysfunctional but lovable family, it becomes clear that everyone has a right to happiness but that this right can only be obtained by making choices, which is not always easy.

The screenplay was written by the novel-writing duo Pat van Beirs and Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem. Beirs also translated several animated comedies into Flemish, including Chicken Run and Monsters Inc, while Van Rijckeghem also had a hand in the equally warm-hearted yet truthful Flemish delight Man zkt vrouw (A Perfect Match), that was also set in the city of Ghent, though in the more affluent city centre rather than its working-class outskirts (the "Moscou" of the title is the name of the neighbourghood where Matty lives).

 

In their screenplay for Aanrijding in Moscou, comedy, drama and nicely observed character-building moments are finely interwoven in the first hour. The way it makes worn-out clichés an asset rather than a liability is a delight. The daily family dinners, for example, consist of a checklist of typically Flemish dishes: black pudding, waterzooi, Flemish beef stew. But as whipped up by Sarafian in the tiny kitchen of her family flat, they simply feels like the quick and easy choices of an overworked mother who has to cook but has her mind elsewhere.

 

The film, entirely shot on location in the flat of Matty's family and in a radius of just several miles for all its other locations, add to the veracity of the  tale, with the loose yet controlled camera movements of cinematographer Ruben Impens finding the right balance between verité and a more classically composed style.

 

When buried secrets surface and romance, drama and comedy are forced to awkwardly intermingle at a crucial dinner scene, however, Van Rompaey creates something of a dent of his own in this otherwise utterly pleasant surprise from Flanders. The way in which the film deals with the revelations surrounding the first love of 17-year-old daughter Vera (Anemone Valcke, a find) is awkward and feels cheap -- note especially how Impens has to manipulate his camera movements during the dinner scene to keep Vera's surprise out of view -- though this storyline does lead to a nice scene between mother and daughter at a laundrette.

 

Similarly, the otherwise organic flow of the narrative is hampered towards the end of the film because Matty's indecision starts to feel less like something dictated by character than by the will of the screenwriters to let their protagonist have her cake and eat it too. It is a good thing that by that time the audience, greatly aided by a superb, stripped-down performance of Sarafian, will be ready to forgive her for her irrational out-of-character behaviour.