de facto film reviews 3 stars

Two teenage boys find their innocent intimacy and friendship in turmoil during the new school year in Close, Lukas Dhont’s sensitive and potent sophomore feature that was just nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature. As his debut feature, Girl, Dhont delivers another coming-of-age story of young adolescence, though the protagonists are a few years younger, the film winds up being very wrenching and even distressing like its processor, and it offers some graceful moments in the third act. LGBTQ+ viewers might be more a distance from this film because there have been an endless number of films exploring the cruelties, oppression, and repression the community experiences, but many are now at a reaching point where they want fresher and more empowering stories that celebrate life instead of exploring themes of repression.

After the success and controversies of Girl, which was also a coming-of-age story and about a young transgender woman that must deal with gender dysphoria as she tries out for ballet, it faced backlash for feeling like “trans trauma porn“, as it depicts self-harm as it explores a transgender person in trouble. Dhont could very well face the same criticisms with Close, which Dhont does repeat some of the same emotional turmoil and agony found in Girl, but can’t a lot of celebrated filmmakers before such as Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, and Lars von Trier be accused of “trauma porn”? Despite the discourse, the film is anchored by two powerhouse performances from its novice actors Gustav Da Wale as Leo and Eden Dambrine as Remi, as well as a sincere supporting performance from Emile Dequenne, who starred as the lead title character in the 1999 Dardenne Brothers’ masterpiece Rosetta.

Pourquoi le film 'Close' de Lukas Dhont divise-t-il la critique en France ? - rtbf.be Courtesy of A24 Films 

Dhont’s Close is more about the ambiguities, curiosities and growing pain uncertainties of childhood than being a film about gay children.  The film can also be viewed in the first half of two young teenagers just being prevailingly happy with their company, and perhaps their feelings they have are too early to define. While the equivocations of titillating impulses and feelings are observed in the children’s life, which parents either punish or ignore. What gay children are mostly left with is mockery from other children, which leads to a lot of confusion, and Dhont never shies away in showing kids as being sweet or pure, but they can rather be crueler and more sensual as time passes. This is all done tastefully, and it never feels heavy-handed.

The film explores the close friendship of two 13-year-old boys who are inseparable from each other. Leo and Remi are subtly intimate, whether it is just laying down and resting their head on each other or wrapping their arms around another, they are instantly labeled derogatory and homophobic slurs in school, and even their female classmates ask if they are a couple. When Leo asks if they are a couple for doing the same thing, they shake it off as it just only being friends, yet Leo and Remi are instantly labeled gay for matching their exact same actions. It’s not to say that there isn’t an attraction between the two. They are driven to each other that goes beyond their comprehension. They enjoy each other’s other company, and they both feel unease when they aren’t in each other’s company.

Close - Vega Scene

The parents treat their friendship encourage and support it rather matter of fact. especially Leo’s mom who enjoys Remi’s musical talent with the flute. The film’s setting, characters, and parents all have the best of intentions. The moments of Leo and Remi running together in meadow fields as the purest place of harmony where people can be themselves. Dhont actually shoots Belgium’s landscapes as a utopian place–and even its institutions never feel in disarray in how they are presented. His setting feels like a provisional utopia of comfort, freedom, and support, but all of that evaporates once human cruelties reveal themselves and Dhort examines how cruelness and conformity can instantly capitulate love and friendship.

It doesn’t take long in school for the fellow male classmates to make crude remarks to Leo, who is called some homophobic slurs and he’s left feeling irritable, subdued, and ashamed. He ends up detached from Remi, distancing himself from hanging out on the playground, and signs up to be in the school’s hockey game. It ends up not only feeling like a breakup, but an end to a relationship. One that leaves Remi distraught and in disarray. The film takes a devastating turn, innocence is lost or rather slipped away from outside forces which leads to tragedy. From there the film becomes a meditation on guilt, and how we often push others away because people too often conform to conventional structures and attitudes from others that are imposed on us within society. The films climactic scene ends on a very powerful moment, one that earns all of its genuine pathos. Honestly conceived and executed, Dhont’s film is naturalistic and delicate, it doesn’t offer easy answers or simplistic themes; instead, it invites you into a world and ponders questions on how adults could learn from children if they just observed and listened.

Close Opens Friday, January 27th, 2023 in limited theaters.