OVP: The Broken Circle Breakdown (2013)

Film: The Broken Circle Breakdown (2013)
Stars: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Nell Cattyrsse
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Belgium)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There are stereotypes about foreign language films that are nominated for Oscars, many of which I have espoused here before (typically as a way into the movie).  However, one of the ones that I don't talk about very often, even if it's wildly true, is that foreign language films at the Oscars are frequently depressing.  Cancer, genocide, torture, murder, violence, crime-they feature in these films with utter abandon.  Part of why some people attend the movies is that they want escapist fare (how else do you explain something like Neighbors being so damn successful this past weekend), but not me.  I tend to actually like depressing movies, particularly if they have enough life in them to make the depression count.

One recent example of a film that I couldn't stand because it was so dark was Biutiful, a recent nominee in the Foreign Film category-the movie dealt with tough, hard subjects (a man of little means dying from cancer), but the lead performance and the actual plot left anything but depression in the audience's mouth.  The reality is in life the most depressing moments stem not from what is the most devastating, but the loss of something that made you happy or gave you hope.  Films occasionally forget that fact, but thankfully that's not the case for Broken Circle Breakdown.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is told out of synch, and while this is a standard trope (think of something like Blue Valentine, for example), it's still effective.  The film is about a small family: a tattoo artist named Elise (Baetens), a bluegrass musician named Didier (Heldenbergh) and their daughter Maybelle (Cattyrsse), and their highs and lows.  During the first half of the film, we see Didier and Elise's initial courtship, how she was more untamed than he and crawling with tattoos, while he was an idealistic young musician with a love of America.  In the present, they are struggling with their daughter's battle with cancer at the age of six.  The film continues to unfold both ends of the argument, with their love and initial pregnancy resulting in them building a house, and their daughter becoming sicker and sicker, until finally she passes away.

The second half of the movie is far more uneven, as the film's focus seems to wander.  We expect that the film will shift to their crumbling marriage, and indeed it does, but it also seems to find too many misdirections in the flashbacks.  It doesn't seem quite right that they're continually flashing back, at least to their relationship without their daughter.  I alluded above that you need the sweet with the bitter, and for the first hour this works.  In the second hour, though, the balance and the direction of the film doesn't seem quite right.  We have Didier and Elise both going in different directions, but Didier's directions seem to contradict themselves every scene, with him going on a tirade against religion and the Bush administration, whereas Elise succumbs to drug use and erratic behavior (changing her name, further tattoos).  The ending, also, took me quite out of the film, when in the penultimate scene Elise dies from a self-inflicted drug overdose, and then wanders around the hospital.  The film therefore takes a decidedly pro-religion stance (we see her wandering through something of an afterlife), but what does that mean for our interpretation of Didier's tirades and, in the eyes of the director, ignorance?  It's something to ponder, but no real explanations or logic seem to be applied, and so I cannot quite sign off on this movie, plot-wise.

However, the acting is quite good (particularly Baetens, who oddly enough played the Flemish version of Ugly Betty) and the music is exceptional ("Poor Wayfaring Stranger" sticks out in my mind, though everything is quite wonderful in an Inside Llewyn Davis sort of way), so now that it's on DVD, I'd suggest you check it out.  For those that have, what were your thoughts on the film?  Where does it rank in your personal list of the Foreign Language nominees from this past year (I've only got the winner left to view)?  And do you have a place in your heart for depressing movies?  Share in the comments!