#Van Dessel

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[filmswithoutfaces]

Close  2022 | dir. Lukas Dhont

[admireforever]

Close

[screen-studies]

Close  2022 | dir. Lukas Dhont

[gregor-samsung]

Le rire de ma mère (Colombe Savignac, Pascal Ralite, 2017)

[samsdei]

Igor Van Dessel

[rookie-critic]

Close (2022, dir. Lukas Dhont) - review by Rookie-Critic

Friendship is the bedrock of childhood. Really, it's the bedrock of adulthood, as well, although most of us don't put the same effort into it that we did when we were kids. Close analyzes a relationship between two young boys that almost transcends friendship and becomes brotherhood, and I don't really mean familial brotherhood so much as a platonic life partner that you literally cannot live without. It also analyzes how societal pressures on masculinity and the negative perception of showing any kind of physical affection towards a friend of the same sex as you, and how that can tear that bond apart from the inside and out and pull those two people in opposite directions. I found Close to be incredibly moving at times, and incredibly emotionally manipulative at others. It really walks a tightrope throughout the second half of the film and occasionally stumbles into territory that feels a tad more melodramatic than it does powerful.

The film's central theme and the performance given by first time actor Eden Dambrine, who plays Leo, one of the two best friends, are the film's biggest wins, with the latter being an absolute powerhouse. Dambrine never slips into the melodrama that the film around him seeks to portray, actually giving quite an understated performance, one of solemn despair, quiet guilt, and longing. I was blown away to find out that this is his first ever acting job. Literally, if you go to Dambrine's IMDb page you will only see one entry, and that's Close. I would toss his name into the ring with the likes of Frankie Corio and Woody Norman as one of the best child performances in film in the last decade. Also, to speak on the tightrope walk from earlier, while there are those moments where the film slips, the moments that are genuinely moving are powerful, and it's in the little things. I think the moment that broke the tear dam for me on this was something so innocuous that it really made me wonder why the film even bothered with all of its more grand, clearly-trying-to-tug-at-the-heartstrings bits at all.

A thing that the film does fantastically is show how best friends tend to be taken in by at least one of the two kids' families, and the relationship that develops between the parents and their child's friend as something almost as strong as the bond between the kids themselves. Towards the beginning of the film, the character played by Émilie Dequenne calls Leo, who is not her biological son, her "son-at-heart," and the warmed me to the bone. It's something that I personally don't see portrayed in film a whole lot, and I appreciate that Close took that on immensely. One last complaint I will throw out, and this is my nitpick for this film, is that it does have a tendency to drag. I really felt it towards the beginning and towards the end, where it felt like the film was stalling for time, showing the audience things we'd already seen, or hit beats it already hit. Maybe this was to drive the point home more, but really I didn't need any of that. Director Lukas Dhont was doing a great job at conveying his point from the start. It's not as egregious as something like Bardo, by any means, but I did take notice of it.

This one really struck a chord in me. I've never pushed a friend away the way Leo does in this, but I have struggled with showing non-romantic affection for my friends my entire life because of worries over how it might be perceived, and I'm so glad I've never let it get as bad as what happens between the two best friends in Close. This was a rough, but very rewarding watch, and well-deserving of its Oscar nomination. I look forward to seeing what Dhont and Dambrine do next.

Score: 9/10

Currently only in theaters.

[stuff-diary]

Close

Movies watched in 2023

Close (2022, Belgium/France/Netherlands)

Director: Lukas Dhont

Writers: Lukas Dhont & Angelo Tijssens

Mini-review:

What a beautiful, heartbreaking movie. It's such a sensitive, nuanced exploration of masculinity, friendship and grief. The story feels very realistic (some scenes have literally happened to me), and it is harrowing to see the painful ways these characters develop due to societal expectations and peer pressure. Tbh, I saw a lot of me in them. Also, I like that the movie never tries to define the characters' sexuality, cause that's not what it wants to talk about. What it wants to highlight is the way society makes boys terrified of being affective with each other, even though it should be completely normalized.

On top of that, the story is told with gorgeous cinematography and mindblowing performances from Eden Dambrine and Gustav de Waele. Although they are very young and neither of them had previous acting experience, their performances are flawless. Dambrine stands out more because he gets more screen time, and his eyes are incredibly expressive: you can always see in them his character's complex emotions and thoughts. But seriously, they are easily two of the best child actors I've ever seen. Émilie Dequenne and Léa Drucker also give beautiful performances as the boys' mothers. Anyway, Close is not an easy watch, but it does send a very important and powerful message.

P.S. The movie has some potentially triggering content which I'm not including here or in the tags because it would be a spoiler. Keep that in mind.

[filmbook21]

[palmeraie]

Close

[moviemosaics]

Close

directed by Lukas Dhont, 2022

[admireforever]

Close

[mariwatchesmovies]

Close (2022) dir. Lukas Dhont

[randomrichards]

CLOSE:

The closest of friends

Pushed away in middle school

How deep bonds can be

[lentecreativo]

"Close" (2022)

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 32, 2023

Temporal Dynamics Underlying Prelimbic Prefrontal Cortical Regulation of Action Selection and Outcome Evaluation during Risk/Reward Decision-Making. Bercovici, D. A., Princz-Lebel, O., Schumacher, J. D., Lo, V. M., & Floresco, S. B. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(7), 1238–1255.

Negative symptoms, striatal dopamine and model-free reward decision-making in schizophrenia. Brandl, F., Knolle, F., Avram, M., Leucht, C., Yakushev, I., Priller, J., … Sorg, C. (2023). Brain, 146(2), 767–777.

A goal-directed account of action slips: The reliance on old contingencies. Buabang, E. K., Köster, M., Boddez, Y., Van Dessel, P., De Houwer, J., & Moors, A. (2023). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(2), 496–508.

Neural representations of vicarious rewards are linked to interoception and prosocial behaviour. Contreras-Huerta, L. S., Coll, M.-P., Bird, G., Yu, H., Prosser, A., Lockwood, P. L., … Apps, M. A. J. (2023). NeuroImage, 269, 119881.

Pallidal neuromodulation of the explore/exploit trade-off in decision-making. de A Marcelino, A. L., Gray, O., Al-Fatly, B., Gilmour, W., Douglas Steele, J., Kühn, A. A., & Gilbertson, T. (2023). eLife, 12, e79642.

A primer on entropy in neuroscience. Fagerholm, E. D., Dezhina, Z., Moran, R. J., Turkheimer, F. E., & Leech, R. (2023). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 146, 105070.

Representational integration and differentiation in the human hippocampus following goal-directed navigation. Fernandez, C., Jiang, J., Wang, S.-F., Choi, H. L., & Wagner, A. D. (2023). eLife, 12, e80281.

Behavioral status modulates CA2 influence on hippocampal network dynamics. He, H., Wang, Y., & McHugh, T. J. (2023). Hippocampus, 33(3), 252–265.

Mechanisms That Underlie Expression of Estradiol-Induced Excitatory Synaptic Potentiation in the Hippocampus Differ between Males and Females. Jain, A., & Woolley, C. S. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(8), 1298–1309.

Bayes factor functions for reporting outcomes of hypothesis tests. Johnson, V. E., Pramanik, S., & Shudde, R. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(8), e2217331120.

Replay and compositional computation. Kurth-Nelson, Z., Behrens, T., Wayne, G., Miller, K., Luettgau, L., Dolan, R., … Schwartenbeck, P. (2023). Neuron, 111(4), 454–469.

Presaccadic attention sharpens visual acuity. Kwak, Y., Hanning, N. M., & Carrasco, M. (2023). Scientific Reports, 13, 2981.

Expansion and compression of space within and beyond the boundaries of an object. Lebed, A., Scanlon, C., & Vickery, T. J. (2023). Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85(2), 387–403.

Strategically managing learning during perceptual decision making. Masís, J., Chapman, T., Rhee, J. Y., Cox, D. D., & Saxe, A. M. (2023). eLife, 12, e64978.

Thoughts matter: a theory of motivated preference. Nagler, M. G. (2023). Theory and Decision, 94(2), 211–247.

Equifinality in infancy: The many paths to walking. Schneider, J. L., & Iverson, J. M. (2023). Developmental Psychobiology, 65(2), e22370.

Predictions and choices for others: Some insights into how and why they differ. Smith, S. M., & Krajbich, I. (2023). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(2), 528–541.

Neural assemblies uncovered by generative modeling explain whole-brain activity statistics and reflect structural connectivity. van der Plas, T. L., Tubiana, J., Le Goc, G., Migault, G., Kunst, M., Baier, H., … Debrégeas, G. (2023). eLife, 12, e83139.

Layer- and cell-type-specific differences in neural activity in mouse barrel cortex during a whisker detection task. Vandevelde, J. R., Yang, J.-W., Albrecht, S., Lam, H., Kaufmann, P., Luhmann, H. J., & Stüttgen, M. C. (2023). Cerebral Cortex, 33(4), 1361–1382.

Hierarchical architecture of dopaminergic circuits enables second-order conditioning in Drosophila. Yamada, D., Bushey, D., Li, F., Hibbard, K. L., Sammons, M., Funke, J., … Aso, Y. (2023). eLife, 12, e79042.