Film review: Close is a forensic dissection of masculinity
Close: a very different take on male relationships
- Close
- ★★★★★
If is fuelled by testosterone and machismo, (15A) offers a very different take on male relationships.
Thirteen-year-old Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele) are boisterous, affectionate and devoted to one another in the shared world of their private imagination. But when they start Middle School, and one of their classmates casually asks if they are ‘together’, Léo begins to pull back from his friend. Stung by teasing and name-calling, Léo takes up ice hockey and deliberately avoids hanging out with Rémi, who is baffled by the changes in his pal.
Written by Angelo Tijssens and Lukas Dhont, with Dhont directing, Close is a coming-of-age tale and a forensic dissection of a masculinity that has yet to learn what being masculine means.
The story moves from idyllic to sad before escalating into tragedy, documenting a loss of innocence that is all the more heartrending given that Léo and Rémi, for all their imaginative games, lack the basic language required to articulate who they really are.
Instead they learn the hard way that while society allows for certain kinds of male physical contact — that of embraces between brothers, say, or the kiss of a father for a son, or the backslapping and hugs shared by ice hockey team members — other forms of male physical touch are forbidden on pain of ridicule and ostracism.
The young Eden Dambrine and Gustav de Waele are excellent in the lead roles, both uncannily naturalistic in their touching performances, and they get strong support from Emilie Dequenne, playing Rémi’s mother Sophie, and Igor van Dessel as Léo’s older brother Charlie.
(cinema release)
