Eldorado

There is no country in the world where absurdity and humour, tragedy and sympathy, faith and surrealism go hand-in-hand as much as in Belgium. Right from the first scene in which Yvan catches the burglar Elie, life seems to be an impossible stalemate. Elie hides under the bed and says she has a knife. Yvan, who trades in huge American gas guzzlers, cannot bring himself to take the naive Elie to the police. We try just as hard as Yvan to believe that Elie is a junkie who kicked the habit. But what are Yvan’s motives for helping this stranger?
What follows is a journey through French-speaking Belgium, shot in beautiful CinemaScope, that is a kind of deserted no-man’s-land evoking American road movies. On their way to the French border, to Elie’s parents, the protagonists bump into all kinds of weird and wonderful people. These bizarre and comic encounters are among the high points of the film year. Yet Lanners’ interest in the two gold seekers goes a lot deeper. In this Belgian Oscar submission, that had already been lauded at Cannes, the robust Lanners himself plays the lead. He can also be admired in the stunning Louise-Michel by Delépine & Kervern. (GT)