Love hurts. It’s a fact widely known, even to children and pop singers. Fueled by pop-cultural need, “love” has become a trademark, a t-shirt selling, cupcake-decorating, overly sugary and glittery yet empty term. Accordingly, all its emotional profits and burdens have also been pauperized. It’s clear that mainstream cinema feels comfortable with this state of things, where it does not have to seek meaning or importance, merely deliver something comfortably expected. For all those who find their hearts a little less obvious, who cannot conform to popular emotional rules and codes, there are films like The Broken Circle Breakdown. Sensibly written and thoughtfully directed, intuitively acted, bitter-sweet like Belgian chocolate, propelled by incredible bluegrass music that can easily enchant both light-hearted and broken-hearted.
Felix van Groeningen’s award-winning film is, at first glance, a typical love story with a dramatic twist. Elise (Veerle Baetens) is a tattoo artist, a bubbly and creative person with an innate need for love. She meets Didier (Johan Heldenbergh), an older bluegrass musician, when he stops by the studio where she works, and wins his heart in a unorthodox way: she convinces the reluctant visitor that inking your body is great by giving him a “tour” of her ex-boyfriends’-inspired tattoos. At this point the viewer might already expect that it’s just a matter of time until Didier joins the happy bunch. The unlikely duo soon become inseparable: their love explodes, a strong sexual bond forms, and their souls melt into one. She even joins his band. As in a old fairytale, they are simply meant to be and live happily ever after.
Then, Elise gets pregnant. First an unwelcome obstacle, it soon turns out to be the biggest blessing. Their baby girl Maybelle seems to be a natural extension and perfect addition to their union. Now three, they are far from a conventional atomic family. Free-spirited and open-minded, theoretically settled but always ready to go on a journey. Their colorful life and bohemian house is a reflection of who they are as a family, same way Elise’s beautiful tattoos grasp the essence of who she is. When their daughter gets seriously ill, the perfectly harmonious circle of happiness breaks. “In fact I always knew that life isn’t like that, life isn’t generous,” Elise says months later. Sucked into the desperate fight agains time and illness, they will have to re-evaluate their relationship and who they are as individuals.
The film sports some obvious qualities: Baetens and Heldenbergh’s acting is powerful and impeccable, Ruben Impen’s cinematography is sensible and breathtaking, and Björn Eriksson’s music fills the frame with vital energy, melancholy and modern romanticism.
What truly sets the film apart, however, are two crucial choices van Groeningen makes. First is the breakdown of the usually linear, causal connections that form the storyline. Certain scenes are torn apart and put at two different ends of the whole film. The pulsating editing seems to be mimicking the human heartbeat: the narrative is first composed then deconstructed and reorganized again, becoming impulsive and emotion-driven. Don’t be misled: this seemingly chaotic choice is in fact a coherent and effective method that only adds organic fluidity and poignancy to the film. It also is in perfect synch with the emotion-driven plot.
Second, is the angle van Groeningen chooses to portray the swelling philosophical asynchronism growing between Elise and Didier. Didier is romantic, engaged and full of ideals, but a devout atheist; Elise, on the other hand is realistic, but her sensitivity has a religious underpinning.When confronted with a tangible presence of death and material finality, they discover that their clashing outlooks are no longer a colorful, attractive addition to their relationship but a real obstacle. Van Groeningen poses a surprising, but fundamental question: what can one allow their partner to believe in without loosing one’s own integrity, and therefore, love?
