Is seen as inauthentic and an unwarranted fetish of a transgender body. He might get more reviews for this new movie on the grounds that the unconscious love and friendship between two 13-year-old boys is turning catastrophic and problematic.
I admit there are times when Dhont goes straight into the jarring minor chords of anxiety. But there are two stellar performances by newcomers Gustav De Waele and Eden Dabrine as Rémi and Léo, as well as worthwhile appearances by the actors playing their mother: Sophie (Émilie Dequenne – the iconic for lead roles in Rosetta, who won the Palme d’Or in 1999, when she was just older than today’s boys) and Nathalie (Léa Drucker). Rémi and Leo are inseparable, hanging out and playing together all the time: physical, tactile, happy and innocent, but certainly much more intense than most 13-year-old friends.Leo is particularly close to Rémi’s mother and is physically comfortable with
. He especially admires Rémi’s musical talent – he plays the oboe. The classmates suddenly realized their intense friendship. Girls – it can be honest, or it can be mean, or just somewhere in between – ask Leo if he and Remi are dating. With malicious, false fallacy, they asked if Leo “knew it”.
Soon, the boys began making malicious remarks to Leo, who was angry, scared, and humiliated. He retreats from Rémi, takes him to the playground, and plunges into manly ice hockey. Rémi was deeply confused and hurt; Léo finds it difficult to endure Rémi’s rebuke for dumb, then non-dumb, and facing his own fickle dishonesty.
Close’s story is disturbing because, despite the youth’s understanding of the language of relationships and LGBT issues, compared with the relative innocence of 10 years ago, the breakdown of a Strong friendships are a shock. There’s still no adult life experience to explain that, and the end of a friendship would be devastating in a way that wouldn’t be a romantic relationship.For Rémi, Léo’s sudden decision to part with him was like the decision of his mother to adopt him, or that the sun did not rise in the morning. It was an intense, indescribably painful breakup that Rémi had no language to explain. He can mature in
ways that Leo can’t. Maybe he’s outraged by the unfair surrender to homophobia, or maybe it’s not out of maturity: he’s just upset, or more than that, annoyed. The power of this terrible sad story is unquestionable.
