Julie zwijgt

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.

In the credits of this film, one name stands out: that of Naomi Osaka as an executive producer. The tennis player has made no secret of the mental stress caused by top level match playing.

That's exactly what this film is about. It shows Julie, a promising teenage tennis player, coping with the effects caused by a scandal in her tennis club. She is not directly involved by the events, but she cannot escape them either. Although the people around her urge her to 'talk about it', she refuses, insisting there is nothing to say.

Julie seems to be a rather withdrawn girl, although she is popular with her friends. For the viewer, it is not easy to identify with a protagonist who doesn't show her feelings. The result is that not a lot happens in the film. We see Julie training, talking with her friends and parents, walking her dog, and going to school. On the surface, her life is not very eventful. It is up to the viewer to explore what's going on beneath the surface. We get indications, and we see her struggling, as the people around her do. But everything stays unspoken, as is clearly indicated by the title of the film.

Viewers around me at the Film Festival in Ghent, seemed dissapointed but not dismissive. "I was hoping something would happen at the end", the girl on my right side remarked. "What was exactly the point?", a woman to my left remarked.

I think the director has left the answer to that question intentionally open. He didn't spell it out, but has left it for us to discover. If there is a point, I think it could be that preparing young people for a very competitive sports environment should be done with ultimate care.

I know, that doesn't sound spectacular and it probably won't stimulate large crowds to see this film. But some film makers prefer quiet 'slice of life'-movies over high-octane spectacles. Just ask the Dardenne brothers. They are also producers of this film.

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.

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'.

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.