Événement

BRUSSELS BY NIGHT

Dir. Marc Didden
Belgium, 1983
In French and Dutch with English subtitles

Max could have shot himself. Instead he takes his anxious terror out of the house, to the train station, and wanders the Brussels streets. Hes a detestable guy, a real class-A jerk, though able to convince others that he is wracked with psychological turmoil. To Diddens credit, Max becomes a detailed study in pathological behavior, and perhaps a cultural gesture of the inevitable and demented decay of the European man. The set design of Diddens films evokes the 1950s, and into these settings walks new monsters from the dark 80s.

Alice (Ingrid de Vos), tries to apply some of the sentimental charm of the past to this new ugly reality, and we watch her character fail. The heroes have decided to show their true selves: abstract rage, emotional stiltedness, and a reliance on bigotry when they dont get what they want. Alice is an empath who runs a bar like a full-service therapeutic clinic, and winds up in a strange dance between Max and Adbel (Amid Chakir). She doesnt manage her feelings well, and she and Abdel lose out for allowing Max into their lives. Max manipulates both anti-Arab sentiment and classic male domination to bad ends, like a ruinous whirlwind twisting itself into oblivion.

A distinct film mood inhabited Belgium in the 1980s, established by a small group of auteur filmmakers who drew from the same pool of actors and a shared tone of existential (masculine) ruin. Marc Didden, a rock critic who spent a lot of time talking to Frank Zappa and The Ramones, also created several murderer-portraits: BRUSSELS BY NIGHT and ISTANBUL. The engagement with neurosis and self-loathing saves these films from being a total glorification of the 20th century creep, although they also walk the line. Brad Dourif and François Beukelaers give powerful performances that generate disgust but also curiosity, where perversion and bigotry are arguably tools to hide a more essential grotesque. Cast in these films are Belgian director Dominique Deruddere (who made a biopic of Bukowski in '89) and actress/director Ingrid de Vos. The fascination with murderers and predators seem here, as elsewhere, a way of probing more deeply into ambient urges and uncontrollable fantasies.