Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village in the World

Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert’s gloriously dry comedy, which finds two cops attempting to calm local villager’s concerns over an increasing number of suicides in their otherwise peaceful community, is also a disarming and frequently charming portrait of country life.

Vitrival is a small rural village where life passes by peacefully. At least, it was. But events have recently taken a dark turn. First, there’s the anonymous vandal whose graffiti image of a phallus adorns public spaces, including the door of the local church. Then there are the suicides. The first was Christian, inexplicable to those who knew him. But now there’s more.

Two neighbourhood cops, who are cousins and responsible for patrolling the village and its environs, aren’t used to this level of work and pressure. In a job that once saw them doing little more than roaming the roads, listening to the local radio DJ’s eclectic music choices and cautioning on minor infractions, they now find themselves investigating something more substantial.

A pitch-perfect portrait of rural village life, whose sedate rhythms remain unperturbed by the series of events the cops are investigating, Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert’s film is a deadpan comic delight. Shooting in an area they know well and employing locals – many of whom they have previously worked with – the filmmakers place less emphasis on the process of the cops’ investigation, instead favouring observations of village activity, and drawing humour from the idiosyncrasies, petty rivalries and quirky character traits of its population.

– Vanja Kaludjercic

Interview

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