Moscow, Belgium (2008)

I love this movie so much

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Simply A Masterpiece

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

What starts out as a standard fender bender in a car park at a super market in the town of Ghent,ends up in a chance meeting of two damaged souls. Matty,who's husband,Werner has left her for a much younger woman,and has yet to come to terms about it,backs her car into a truck, driven by Johnny,who at first verbally lashes out at her,then offers to fix her car. Things begin to happen to this mis-matched pair. Barbara Sarafian turns in a winning performance as Matty,who is bitter & cynical of all men. She works at the local post office,where she is subjected to the more sordid details of the love life of her co-worker. Matty has three children by her (failed)marriage to Werner (Peter,played by a somewhat myopic Julian Borsani...Fien,played by Sofia Ferri--a delight...and her 17 year older daughter,Vera,played by Anemone Valcke,who should have had more screen time). Johnny,played by a (at first)brutish looking Jurgen Delnael,is another example of a man who couldn't control his temper,as a result of out of control alcoholism (but has taken the pledge,and only drinks water,even at a bar),but has tried to get his life back together & takes a real fancy to Matty. Johan Hildenbergh (who absolutely shone on screen in Marlene Goris's film of 'Antonia's Line')plays Matty's swinish art teacher ex-husband, Werner,who just can't be trusted,by Matty (Werner's mobile phone goes off at always the wrong time by his live in lover,who we never see on screen,but we know she's got Werner by the short & curly's). A mixed bag of emotions (rage to tenderness)make this a tempest of a relationship,which makes for a film that varies from funny to harrowing to pathos. Check it out (if you don't mind a film that is mostly spoken in the Flemish dialect of Dutch). Not rated by the MPAA, this film contains raunchy language,nudity & adult situations.

This tiresome tale of unattractive non-characters in dreary event-less setting left me hoping for a swift end to the film. But it kept droning on, um, coughing-on, in Flemish for what seemed an eternity. The deathless euro-piano/accordion score fills in the gaps -- and there are many -- between non-story, inane dialog, and truly unwanted nudity.The technical quality of the filming mirrors the writing and acting. Dull, faded colors that might be intended to suggest Soviet-era VHS video -- or just a very low budget. Why any man would be attracted to the dour unappealing female lead is as inexplicable as why anyone would be interested in this film.

I loved this movie! It's amusing, touching, warm, sweet and salty and an exercise in great acting. Funny, but this the second movie I've watched recently that's set in Belgium (the other was 'In Bruges'). The nation must be striving to throw off its dull image and present a new face to the world. Moscow Belgium certainly overturns the concept that dysfunctional families are confined to North America. Here we have Eurodisfunction. Moscow (strictly Moscou) is the name of the suburb the protagonists inhabit, which as far as I can see is between Gent and the North Sea coast. It is glimpsed very briefly on the destination board on the front of a bus. This seemed to cause confusion amongst our audience and I overheard several muttered conversations as I left the theatre as to what on earth Russia had to do with it? So possibly the movie name has lost something in translation? It translates better as Collision in Moscou. Barbara Sarafian plays Matty, a rather dowdy, phlegmatic, forty-something mother of three whose art teacher husband Werner has left her for one of his students some five and a half months before. She works in a post office, takes care of the kids and – when we meet her first – is trudging half heartedly around the local megastore buying groceries. Matty is more dead than alive. Exiting the car park, she reverses into the truck of Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet) a red haired, alcoholic but quite cute truck driver some ten years her junior, and a sharp exchange of views ensues about fault and blame, which ends abruptly with the arrival of the traffic police, called by Matty. It seems Johnny has a record. The next day he turns up at her apartment to fix her damaged trunk and he asks her out for a drink. Johnny is intrigued by Matty, but she is less than enamoured of him. All she wants – she thinks – is her old life back; her husband home, her kids behaving and everything ordered and where it should be. Her coworker at the post office has assured her that sexual passion only lasts six months, so Werner will be back soon. But Johnny is persistent and Werner is flaky. Whereas Werner's new girlfriend phones him at awkward times, interrupting all his attempts to converse with his wife, Johnny is amusing and unequivocal about his desire to get Matty into his bed – or at least into the cab of his truck where he has a bunk. Matty can't quite believe she's doing this but is torn between the quiet life of a known but cheating husband and the roller coaster ride of a relationship with marginally criminal but laddishly attractive Johnny.Then she discovers that Johnny put his ex wife in hospital and all bets are off. Can someone who has done prison time for hitting his last woman be trusted to have changed? Even if he does bond with her son at an air show and bring her Italian designer shoes from his road trips and make her feel sexier than she's felt in years. Lurking in the background of all of this domestic drama are Matty and Werner's three bright children, nerdy Peter who is into airplanes, Fien who tells everyone's fortune with a deck of tarot cards and old-for-her-years Vera, who at sixteen watches and learns from the complicated mess the supposed adults are making of their sex lives. The intimate and often dull details of domestic life are lovingly filmed; Matty's obsession for feeding them blood sausage to build up pale Peter's health, the hours spent watching her laundry tumble around at the laundromat, Johnny sitting obediently at the dinner table like a slightly older version of her kids while she serves up family dinner. In one delicious scene, Johnny, Werner, Matty, the kids – everyone – share a meal while sniping at each other politely over the dinner plates and then in the midst of this domestic bliss, Vera introduces her girlfriend. She's decided life will be simpler if she is gay. Vera is played by Anemone Valcke who is both absolutely gorgeous and a very good young actress and I expect to see much, much more of her in future. The script is perfect, the dialogue real – even in subtitles – and the direction quite understated. There are subtle under tones of a fading European class system at work here too, with teacher Werner obviously thinking Johnny – as a mere truck driver whose father was a railway worker – is intellectually his inferior. You get the feeling that Werner thinks his wife is a bit déclassé too, but of course he can hardly complain about her sleeping with Johnny when he is now bedding a student. I always think a 'foreign language' movie works really well when the acting is so good that you are barely aware that you are reading subtitles. There is no attempt to overstate the humour and force feed it to the audience, rather we absorb the irony and drama of the situation while Matty weighs up the potential fun and excitement of a new life with slightly dodgy but adoring Johnny against the known status quo of getting back together with pretentious Werner. Great movie of human foibles and middle aged love. Go see.

Screenwriters, Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem and Pat van Beirs have written a script that gives us close scrutiny at a woman's character and how it slowly changes or bends as circumstances arise. They have done it well.It is more often than not that one wold find character development like this in a "foreign" film. Maybe that is changing, and that would be a good thing. If we can trust that our audiences will watch characters interacting with one another, without the need for some cinematic shock, i.e. action, suspense, sex, etc, then we may have more movies like this in the U.S. I have nothing against action, suspense, sex, etc, it's just that we could use more movies that depict character studies.Director, Christophe Van Rompaey takes the reins and nicely dramatizes this story about a domestic life, while holding back any temptation to rush.Very nice performances are given by Barbara Sarafian, Jurgen Delnaet and Johan Hildenbergh.Barbara Sarafian, Jurgen Delnaet, Johan Heldenbergh, Anemone Valcke, Sofia Ferri , Julian Borsani, Bob De Moor, Jits Van Belle and Griet van Damme