Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Wonderfully shot film about the special relationship between two outsiders: an opium-addicted sailor and a precocious, 10-year-old Chinese girl.
95'
Belgium
IFFR 2020
On a disused dredging vessel on a deserted beach, a young man who has just absconded from a mental institution hammers together a letterbox. He waits for letters from his mother that will never arrive. She was raped by American soldiers as a teen and therefore cannot stand the sight of him; the result of that rape. A marriage of convenience with a mild-mannered man hasn't tempered her resentment either.
Hänsel considered this adaptation of the eponymous novel by Yann Queffélec to be the conclusion of a trilogy that started with Le lit. Together with Dust, these films centre on emotionally harrowing events. Les noces barbares unfolds like a true inescapable-fate drama featuring a traumatised woman and her emotionally damaged son who yearns for love. Strong images – from disturbing children's drawings to the sea as a symbol for a mother's comforting lap – enlarge the realism into a more universal tragedy.
IFFR 2020
Programme IFFR 2020
In response to her recent autobiographical film, this retrospective completes the portrait of a singular voice in filmmaking, writing, producing and acting.
Read more about this programmeWonderfully shot film about the special relationship between two outsiders: an opium-addicted sailor and a precocious, 10-year-old Chinese girl.
95'
Belgium
IFFR 2020
Portrait of Belgian art collector Herman Daled, who sold his collection of conceptual works to the MoMa in 2011.
93'
Belgium
IFFR 2020
Powerfully depicted study of loneliness, love and power on a South African farm. Jane Birkin in one of her best roles.
88'
Belgium
IFFR 2020