The components of The Broken Circle Breakdown don’t seem as though they would make for a coherent whole. The film is Belgian with Flemish dialogue. Infatuated with bluegrass music and a mythical America, a leading character lives his life as a low-countries cowboy. It’s a poignant family drama. Yet little feels forced and nothing is played for novelty. You’d have to have a heart of coal to not tear up.
Didier (Johan Heldenbergh, pictured on left, below right) is a bearded, Kris Kristofferson lookalike who beds down in a caravan on his run-down farm. A former punk, he tends chickens and a horse, but has not tackled the job of restoring the house he could live in. He plays banjo and sings in a bluegrass band. His obsession with mandolin titan Bill Monroe is soon challenged by the bright light that is tattooist Elise (Veerle Baetens) They are instantly smitten with each other. She becomes pregnant and joins his band (pictured below left). Their baby girl is called Maybelle, after country star Maybelle Carter.
Their relationship is tested by Maybelle becoming sick at age seven. The film charts Didier and Elise’s life together, before and after Maybelle’s illness, with flashbacks and snapshots from the path they share. A fundamental difference is highlighted between them by the family crisis: Didier cannot accept the ambiguities of faith while Elise embraces the spiritual to help her through the bad times. This dichotomy is gradually, piece-by-piece, revealed to be the film’s foundation.
Despite its off-the-wall trappings, this emotive film sensitively handles the changing dynamic between Didier and Elise. Heldenbergh plays the gruff, warm-hearted, initially irresponsible Didier with distinction – tonal shifts are believable, although moments of distress are a little overcooked.
Belgian TV star and singer Baetens’s (recently seen here as Margaret of Anjou in The White Queen) tattoo-covered Elise is more complex. She’s a free spirit, but looking for a chance to be grounded. She’s given to erasing – literally, with her tattoos – former aspects of her life. She has no belief that anything can last forever. Doubts always lurk. Despite her spiritual side, she cannot commit wholeheartedly. As Maybelle, Nell Cattrysse is a joy. The music Didier loves and speaks through features strongly. It is not the broad, almost-farce of director Felix Van Groeningen’s last film, 2009’s The Misfortunates.
The Broken Circle Breakdown began life as the stage play co-written by Heldenbergh, who had featured in two of Van Groeningen’s previous features. The film adaptation was created with Heldenbergh in mind. On screen, the flow has a break-point 45 minutes in when, after a pivotal event, thoughts turn to how the film can continue. In effect, this where Act One gives way to Act Two.
At 105 minutes, The Broken Circle Breakdown is overlong, and 10 or so minutes less would have made it sharper. It also makes some political points about Didier’s fabled America and the religious right wing which don’t sit seamlessly with the whole. They feel bolted on and appear to be there solely to demonstrate to Didier – and viewers – that the American dream is soiled.
Nonetheless, The Broken Circle Breakdown is a warm, affecting film. Whatever its blemishes, the naturalism and humanity Van Groeningen brings to the screen echo fellow Belgian directors the Dardenne brothers. This is a director to watch.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for The Broken Circle Breakdown
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