Sundance 2016 | ‘Belgica’ Lowers the Bar

Over the course of my life I’ve seen movies that have made me feel pleasure, and pain, and sadness, and joy, and terror and lust. But never before have a seen a film that made me feel like I was a designated driver. So thanks, Belgica. I guess…

Let’s back up. The latest film from Felix Van Groeningen takes us behind the scenes of “Belgica,” an impossibly kickass bar-turned-nightclub run by two brothers – Jo (Stef Aerts) and Frank (Tom Vermeir) – who watch as their dream of an inclusive social and music community devolves into elitism and capitalist mundanity. And they watch through a coked up haze, because Belgica also rapidly becomes a hotbed of hedonism and drug abuse.

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The intimate and thoughtful melodrama that made Van Groeningen’s previous film, The Broken Circle Breakdown, such an unforgettable experience cannot be found in Belgica. Melodrama is everywhere, no one can argue that, but the screenplay drops us directly into the days just before Jo and Frank start running the nightclub together, so that all the childhood drama that supposedly parallels their personal problems as adults comes across as purely academic. We get the idea of what Van Groeningen is trying to convey with his characters – it’s a cycle of paternal disappointment, fueled by selfishly distracting oneself from what really matters – but it lacks punch. 

And that’s a shame, because in every other aspect, Belgica is pretty good at punch. Felix Van Groeningen has a remarkable ability to convey an elaborate, lived in community full of fully developed characters (even if they hardly get any screen time). Few films have ever captured the club experience with as much immediacy as Belgica. This, combined with an incredibly kickass soundtrack, transforms a mediocre drama into a sensurround experience. It will feel like you’re really in a club with all the bumping and grinding and drugging and fighting, and people just generally ignoring everything that, once again, really matters.

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A little goes a long way in an environment like that, so before long Belgica – for all of its panache, and all of its amazing tunes – simply outstays its welcome. The audience picks up on the flimsy appeal of rejecting family and philosophy in favor of booze and boobs far, far earlier than any of the protagonists. So we have to wait for well over an hour for them to get it out of their system. We watch them fight and fuck and flounce about the stage, and we wait with less and less patience for that merciful moment when we can finally go home.

But we can’t do that, because for all intents and purposes (once again) we really are Belgica’s designated driver. We watch everyone else have fun, scoffing at their immaturity and hoping they don’t ruin their marriages, and we have to do it for so god damned long that eventually we stop caring one way or the other. 

Belgica perfectly captures a particular time and place, but it fails to make us want to stay there for very long. All it really does it make you want to buy the soundtrack.

Photos Courtesy of Sundance Institute

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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