“Close”, the moving story of a friendship by director Lukas Dhont, Camera d’Or in 2018

It is to a very rare subject addressed in the cinema that Lukas Dhont invites us into the competition, after his Camera d’Or received at Cannes in 2018 for Girl. That of a fusional friendship between two teenagers who will be undermined by the misunderstanding of their classmates. With its sensitive subject, and its magnificent imagery, the film caused a lot of talk about it on the Croisette.

Léo and Rémi, 13 years old, have always been friends. Their attachment arouses suspicion on the part of certain students at their college, and Leo wants to assert his virility by distancing himself from Rémi. An irreparable tragic event will turn the lives of two families upside down, and Leo will try to find a way out of his devouring guilt.

Lukas Dhont illuminates his film, shot around Grasse, with sunlight, since Léo’s parents grow flowers for the famous local perfume distilleries. In its first part, it captures the rare friendship of two pre-adolescents played with talent by the young actors Eden Dabrine (Léo) and Gustave De Waelle (Rémi). When the story changes, the sun disappears, the rain falls and the storm roars. Innocence fades and life will be forever turned upside down.

Close is inhabited by a delicacy that shines through in the absence of any lyricism in favor of a narrative progression that is more suggestive than descriptive. The fusion between the two friends is expressed in games, gestures, looks… Then Leo’s distancing comes from a suspicion of homosexuality on the part of two young girls in their class. His attitude will never be explained, but we guess it. Rémi’s collapse is all the stronger on screen and what results from it will never be shown.

Lukas Dhont has the elegance of this unsaid, like the silence that Léo takes on him. By dint of being overwhelmed by it, his pain will burst when he meets his friend’s mother. Magnificent by its subject, the interpretation of the actors – including Léa Drucker and Emilie Dequenne -, and its staging, Close received a warm welcome at its World Premiere in Cannes. The film is on everyone’s lips on the Croisette with the aura of a potential Palme.

Gender : Drama
Director: Lukas Dhont
Actors: Eden Dabrine, Gustav De Waele, Emilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker
Country : Belgium / France / Netherlands
Duration : 1h45
Exit : Shortly
Distributer : Diaphana Cast

Summary: Léo and Rémi, 13 years old, have always been friends. Until an unthinkable event separates them. Léo then approaches Sophie, Rémi’s mother, to try to understand…