Delphine Seyrig stars in Harry Kümel’s elegant and sexy vampire film poised on the shadowy margins between art cinema and sexploitation.
Tag: Belgium
‘The Unknown Girl’ from the Dardenne Bros. on Hulu
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Unknown Girl (Belgium, 2016) revisits themes from their earlier films—poverty in poor communities, families going paycheck to paycheck, immigrants at the bottom of the social food chain—but this time views them through the eyes of a young doctor (Adèle Haenel). She’s on her way out of a small neighborhood office […]
‘JCVD’ – Jean-Claude at 47 on Amazon Prime
In the opening scene of JCVD (Belgium, 2008), Jean-Claude Van Damme takes out one heavily-armed, vaguely military bad guy after another with his bare hands (and whatever blunt instruments and discarded weapons he grabs along the way) in an elaborately choreographed long take. He comes out the other end huffing and winded as the set […]
‘The Broken Circle Breakdown’ on Amazon Prime
The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium, 2012) is devastating. And I mean that in all the best ways. The story of a passionate love rocked by tragedy, it is both joyous and anguished, celebratory and sad. It’s set in a subculture of bluegrass aficionados in Belgium (who knew?), where it is practically love at first sight […]
‘Let the Corpses Tan’ on Amazon Prime Video and Kanopy
The Belgian filmmaking team of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are carving a distinctive and specialized career melding stylized art movies with flamboyant genre pictures drawn from expressive techniques of Italian exploitation movies. With Let the Corpses Tan (Belgium/France, 2018), their third feature, they turn an adaptation of a cult pulp novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette […]
‘The Ardennes’ – Grunge noir from Belgium on Amazon Prime
The Ardennes (2015), a gritty, grungy crime drama from Belgium, opens with a home invasion gone wrong that lands the volatile, violent Kenny (Kevin Janssens) in prison while his younger brother Dave (Jeroen Perceval) and his girlfriend Sylvie (Veerle Baetens) barely escape. Cut to his release four years later as he slips back into alpha […]