‘Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village In The World’: Rotterdam Review

Dirs/scr. Noelle Bastin, Baptiste Bogaert. Belgium. 2025. 109mins.

“Life is sweet,” observes Benjamin (Benjamin Lambilotte) as he reclines with a beer in his newly-installed Nordic scorching tub. Benjamin is one in every of two native cops answerable for upholding the peace within the small rural village of Vitrival, in francophone Belgium. The opposite is his cousin, Little Pierre (Pierre Bastin). Till now, the job has been comparatively low stress. However Vitrival has been rocked by a spate of suicides. And to make issues worse, somebody has began spray-painting dicks everywhere in the city. The dryly comedian characteristic debut from artist/filmmaking duo Noelle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert navigates a tough tonal steadiness: it’s droll with out tipping over into whimsy; perceptive and acutely noticed however by no means mocking.

Perceptive and acutely noticed however by no means mocking

With their quick and mid-length movies, Bastin and Bogaert have repeatedly opted to blur the traces between fiction and non-fiction, preferring to work with non-professional actors in current communities. This strategy works slightly properly for this low key story of rising tensions over bonfire infractions and dick-pic vigilantism – there’s a homely authenticity to all of it. The filmmakers clearly know and empathise with the characters and this small world that finds itself rocked by a collection of massive dramas. A heat reception at additional festivals is probably going, the place the movie ought to join with followers of Kaurismaki-style deadpan humour.

Pierre and Benji spend a lot of their working day waving to buddies and kin (the overlap between the 2 on this close-knit group is appreciable) as they pootle across the nation lanes of their modest squad automobile. The hardest problem that they face is heading off the infinite affords of truffles and refreshments with out offending the aged villagers, or persuading a persistent bonfire miscreant (Pierre’s dad) to desist from smoking out his long-suffering neighbour (Pierre’s dad’s sister).

However whereas the plague of phallic graffiti prompts a level of unrest in the neighborhood, it’s the sudden upswing within the suicide fee that causes the cracks to point out within the in any other case straightforward friendship between the 2 males. Pierre and Benji should not totally clear about whether or not suicide prevention falls inside their purview as native regulation enforcement however, because the dying fee continues to tick up, they really feel that they should do one thing. They begin a group to purchase flowers for the newly crowded cemetery. They usually start to ask uncomfortable questions concerning the emotional well-being of their neighbours, and one another.

Bastin and Bogaert make evocative use of house, and of visible rhythms and repetition. The widescreen format provides a sort of grandeur to this very abnormal little city, a spot that generates an excessive amount of civic satisfaction however not an entire lot of ambition. Maybe, muses Pierre’s girlfriend tentatively throughout a Zoom name, they don’t have to make their residence in Vitrival and will enterprise additional afield. It’s not clear whether or not Pierre genuinely doesn’t hear her or he simply pretends to not, however Vitrival appears to be a non-negotiable in his future plans.

Each Pierre and Benji discover consolation in routines, however the way in which these reassuring day by day rhythms change over the seasons – the consolation of an area radio station is misplaced when the DJ is the most recent to say his personal life, the renovations of each males’s houses grind to a halt – deftly demonstrates the sluggish decline of the group’s collective psychological well being. And all of the whereas, a drum will be heard, a defiant protest in opposition to the small-minded features of the village from a younger girl whose dream of becoming a member of the all-male marching band has been thwarted by the patriarchy and its unshakeable perception in traditions.