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Moscow, Belgium
‘Moscou’ is a densely populated working class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. Matty, mother of three, bumps her car into a truck on the parking lot of a supermarket. Johnny climbs down from the cabin. He is infuriated by the dent in his front bumper and yells at Matty. Although impressed by the accident, Matty fights back with sharp words. Their discussion turns into a row, and the police have to intervene. Matty goes home, the trunk of her car dancing up and down. Back in her apartment, Matty takes a hot bath to recover from the afternoon’s emotionswhen the phone rings. It’s Johnny, apologizing for his behaviour on the parking lot. Matty tells him to stay out of her life. A dramatic comedy begins about a woman whose soul is full of dents and bruises.
Release : | 2008 |
Rating : | 7.2 |
Studio : | A Private View, |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Director, |
Cast : | Barbara Sarafian Jurgen Delnaet Johan Heldenbergh Anemone Valcke Bob De Moor |
Genre : | Drama Comedy Romance |
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Thanks for the memories!
People are voting emotionally.
Admirable film.
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
Both Matty and Johnny have been hurt by love. She is a 41 year old mother whose husband while going through midlife crisis leaves her for his 22 year old student and still can't decide who he wants to stay with. Johnny's big love in life couldn't live with him going to work trips and cheated on him. They both are angry with the situation. And when they collide at a parking their anger comes out.But it also connects them and they slowly develop a relationship as they get to know each other.The movie is a romantic comedy. But not a typical one as we see made in Hollywood. It is about working class people who don't look like models. When we first see them, they don't seem that attractive. But the more we get to know them the more attractive they become. We get to love them with all their imperfections and wish them all the best. The movie also doesn't go into a stereotypical happy ending. The ending is actually more ambiguous. We don't now if Matty and Johnny will have a long happily ever after relationship. And yet it leaves us happy. The movie seems more to be about the transformation of Matty. At first we see her walking through the supermarket, all down with fuzzy hair. She is depressed and wants her husband who treated her as he did to come back. At the end she is walking through the street, fresh and with her head high and happy. She doesn't want Werner back. She doesn't need him, she got her life back.Very good acting as well by all of the actors, including the children. Vera is greatly done, not a typical movie teenager who is a pain in life, but an interesting, thoughtful young adolescent.
This is simply a great story. It's a romcom, but here you won't find the usual affluent American suburbia, but a working girl who looks a bit sloppy and has kids she can barely keep in line ( does this look familiar, anyone ? ). She lives in a modest apartment, holds a modest job and her marriage has gone to the dogs with a husband who moved in with a younger woman. She meets a trucker, who has also marital problems, and the story develops from there. Those who do not understand Flemish, and in particular the local dialect, are at a disadvantage as some replies can only be appreciated if you understand the dialect. This hold true for other comedy films and/or series ( ex. "Only Fools and Horses" loses much of it's charm if you don't understand Cockney ). I would put this movie on a par with, say, Sleepless in Seattle or some Danny deVito movies. I've read a rather negative review in these pages, but with the same reasoning I could argue that, were I an American, I would be ashamed of the Godfather-trilogy as it could be construed as a hagiography of the Maffia ( it's not, it's perhaps the best movie of all time ). So : go out and buy this DVD ! And if you can't then steal it.
You can hardly get more unpretentious than what you have here.It's elementary clear how this is made, the devices that were used, and the effective it is and this is a good thing, in this case.Check how the story and the mood is built right from the first scene. A minor traffic accident in a parking lot, that begins an argument. The scene starts as a piece of ordinary life, goes on as a light word-based argument, and finishes in a funny mood. Notice how every word and sentence in this argument is designed to cause an immediate impression without becoming dark or even heavy. That's the mood of the film. It lives on daily lives, it introduces deviating elements, that usually work out funny (the introduction of the lesbian theme was a great moment, among others)and with this mood evokes a sense of tenderness, what audiences may call "romance". The fact that the people who conceived this were able to synthesize this so economically and efficiently in one single scene is really impressive. This is one of the most meaningful first scenes i've seen.I place this with 3 recent comedies that among many differences share a common sense of unpretentiousness, something that admits cinema is a piece of entertainment, that things have to be successful and effective in the eye, and through the dialogues, IN the world of the film, without meaning that the film should moralize or search for superior answers to common themes. These films i saw recently are "Juno", "Little miss Sunshine" and this one. Of the 3, this was the best, to me. It deviates from Hollywood canons even more than the other two, and that may be the reason.It works for the performances, acting, which were surprisingly direct and grasping. I know very few or nothing about Belgian (or equivalent) acting traditions, but i am guessing (may be wrong) that this is inserted in a longer tradition of acting with fluidity, what some may consider "natural" acting. I wouldn't dare to mistake this for "real" life, as i suppose many spectators will, but this is a really well shaped cartoon world. Representation, that's what this is... the guy goes often to Italy, and speaks Italian many times, a language that in some of its golden moments in art is meant to "sound" instead of really "mean".Some cityscapes of the small town of Moscow, Belgium, is great. There was a competent eye for the city here as well.My opinion: 4/5 (FantasPorto 2009)http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com
Screenwriters, Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem and Pat van Beirs have written a script that gives us close scrutiny at a woman's character and how it slowly changes or bends as circumstances arise. They have done it well.It is more often than not that one wold find character development like this in a "foreign" film. Maybe that is changing, and that would be a good thing. If we can trust that our audiences will watch characters interacting with one another, without the need for some cinematic shock, i.e. action, suspense, sex, etc, then we may have more movies like this in the U.S. I have nothing against action, suspense, sex, etc, it's just that we could use more movies that depict character studies.Director, Christophe Van Rompaey takes the reins and nicely dramatizes this story about a domestic life, while holding back any temptation to rush.Very nice performances are given by Barbara Sarafian, Jurgen Delnaet and Johan Hildenbergh.Barbara Sarafian, Jurgen Delnaet, Johan Heldenbergh, Anemone Valcke, Sofia Ferri , Julian Borsani, Bob De Moor, Jits Van Belle and Griet van Damme