Julie zwijgt

This is truly a little masterpiece, executed to perfection. Cinematography, acting, editing, setting and the sparse use of music -all combine seamlessly. It feels effortless, revealing just how much love and effort went into it. There is a natural blend of Flemish and French unseen in Belgian cinema. But this is exactly how kids talk in the affluent communities around Brussels. And yes, don't they all struggle with German.

This film is so delicate that even the verb in the title throws it off balance. Simply 'Julie' would suffice. And yet, each bounce of the tennis ball feels like the dynamite straight out of Clouzot's 'Wages of Fear'.

Saw his at the Ghent 2024 filmfestival. Many scenes show tennis training and related, but not to the extent of being annoying, not even for someone (like me) who is not in sports, any sports. The issues shown are contemporary, and we see many similar cases on TV and in newspapers, varying from rumored via openly alleged to legally proven. What we also clearly see here, is that we never get to know what precisely happened, how far it went and how long it lasted, mostly due to privacy concerns for the accused as well as the victims.

The latter is my problem with this movie. When the final credits appeared, I still did not know what the real problem was. The word "stop" is used very often by Jeremy (the accused trainer), repeatedly emphasizing that he stopped as soon as Julie said she wanted him to stop. Is it thus a case of sexual harassment?? Remarkable is that Julie reacted heftily when she learned that Jeremy got a position as trainer on a different location (we recognize this "move" tactic within the church and sexual abuse cases). She also asked her newly appointed trainer whether he was prepared to keep working with her in the case that Jeremy would be reinstated on his old job.

Another unresolved topic is why Julie kept silent and refused to participate in the talking sessions organized by officials, who are obliged to do "something". Did she not want to reveal her reasons why she kept silent and stayed out of the pending investigation?? Or is it a mixture of feeling guilty that she was late with asking Jeremy to stop?? I can only guess what her considerations were. (Maybe I missed something and was it clear for everyone else watching the same movie.)

All in all, interesting for tennis lovers and equally for others who are interested in the main "me too" theme of this movie. The intermixed tennis training scenes are not dominating, neither are they distracting from the main issues. We see Julie in many scenes and many moods, while succeeding in keeping us fascinated with the developments in the story throughout the running time. The other young actors involved did a good job as well.

This is not a good movie. It's a nice enough story though. But the script could have used some tweaking. It's as if they had a few scenes in mind and then just worked around those. It has a few good scenes (the one with the confrontation in the cafe comes to mind) but that's not enough to keep this thing afloat.

The actors are all on top of their game. Especially, the young semi tennis pro that plays Julie. She really does her best with the material she's given. But that is also not enough. There are just too many questions left unanswered: What actually happened between Julie and Jeremy?

Why does she keep quiet? One minute she has a problem with the new trainer, the next she will only be trained by him (I mean, What the actual F..?) So, story wise, this is just a big FAIL!

But here comes my biggest problem with this movie. This director just doesn't know how to shoot a film!! The framing is just of and wrong. Lighting is non existing. There were shadows everywhere. In one scene you can only make out two silhouettes talking to each other. He never cuts in a scene between different subjects. It's as if, they only had one camera available. Now maybe (and I'm just guessing here), he thinks this brings peace and calm to his movie. But to me, it was just annoying as hell. And if you do decide to not have any cuts in your movie, then make sure to stay in a master shot and let us (the audience) glance and look where we want/need to. No, this director decides for himself, we don't need this information. So, in a lot of scenes, we see people talking to other people whose head is (half) cut of or you just can make out half of their faces. What are they teaching in film school nowadays??!!

Also, was this movie shot on an Iphone??!! When I saw that Nicolas Karakatsanis was DOP on this, my mouth fell to the ground! He really phoned (pun intended) this one in. Sometimes, it was just unwatchable.

For me, all of this comes down to one of 2 things: Either this director doesn't master the basis of film making, or he just doesn't care.

Maybe he just wants to tell his stories. And that's fine. But film is a visual medium. And it just was mishandled here. And I, as a paying customer, want more.

I'm on to these types of indie films which have a rapid fire sequence of mundane scenes. The director is simply trying to hide the fact that the plot is razor thin, and that is his attempt as well to keep the audience's attention.

This, Unfortunately, is a classic example of that.

That said, this was an okay watch.

This quiet, intense film shows its protagonist coming to terms with an abusive tennis coach and the damage he has wrought. The story is told chronologically in short scenes, generally with static camera, and often events important to the plot happen between scenes. This technique, coupled with the dim Flemish light beautifully captured by Nicolas Karakatsanis' photography, increases the sense of foreboding that pervades the film. We're never quite sure what Julie is thinking (she's a teenager!) as she finds her way through the minefield in which she finds herself. Tessa Van den Broeck, who is in most every frame, does an outstanding job portraying both the inscrutable teenager and the hypercompetitive tennis star. Caroline Shaw's music is used sparingly but effectively to comment on the action. The dialogue moves seamlessly back and forth between Flemish and French, with English phrases here and there. All in all, an outstanding job of telling a complicated, nuanced story with subtlety and grace.