A wonderful film about growing up gay and straight: discovering who you are, what love might mean, and learning to deal through trial and error with the world around you.
Set in a lower class neighborhood near the Belgian coast sometime around 1960, the story follows a boy, Pim, and two slightly older neighbor children Gino and Sabrina, from about the age of six or eight until their late teens.
Neglected by a mother who dreams of being swept off to romantic places, the younger boy is more or less adopted by the mother of the two neighbor children. The film resonates with an affectionate realism that does not treat kids as wholly innocent or without personal resources. It deals on every level with knowing who you are, and then dealing honestly with yourself and with others. In the course of the film, the children discard childhood fantasies in favor of a reality that provides scope for realizing their dreams.
The cast is outstanding. The performances of Ben Van den Heuvel and Jelle Florizoone (PIm); Nathan Naenen and Mathias Vergels (Gino); Noor Ben Tahouet, and Nina Marie Koortekaas (Sabrina) as the young / teen aged children are incredible, especially given the age of the actors. Eva van der Gucht and Katelijne Damen play the mothers, in difficult roles - the one flighty and negligent, the other tired and without illusions.
The cinematography is superb. It catches both the poetic beauty of the coastal dunes and wet lands as well as the drab reality of lower class neighborhoods in Belgium, with a color sensitivity that is at once realistic and emotive.
The movie could have easily settled into maudlin sentimentality or romantic excess, but steered a course through difficult subjects with a mixture of restraint and realistic optimism.
Following the showing, every person I talked with found the movie exceptional. Highly recommended.
Set in a lower class neighborhood near the Belgian coast sometime around 1960, the story follows a boy, Pim, and two slightly older neighbor children Gino and Sabrina, from about the age of six or eight until their late teens.
Neglected by a mother who dreams of being swept off to romantic places, the younger boy is more or less adopted by the mother of the two neighbor children. The film resonates with an affectionate realism that does not treat kids as wholly innocent or without personal resources. It deals on every level with knowing who you are, and then dealing honestly with yourself and with others. In the course of the film, the children discard childhood fantasies in favor of a reality that provides scope for realizing their dreams.
The cast is outstanding. The performances of Ben Van den Heuvel and Jelle Florizoone (PIm); Nathan Naenen and Mathias Vergels (Gino); Noor Ben Tahouet, and Nina Marie Koortekaas (Sabrina) as the young / teen aged children are incredible, especially given the age of the actors. Eva van der Gucht and Katelijne Damen play the mothers, in difficult roles - the one flighty and negligent, the other tired and without illusions.
The cinematography is superb. It catches both the poetic beauty of the coastal dunes and wet lands as well as the drab reality of lower class neighborhoods in Belgium, with a color sensitivity that is at once realistic and emotive.
The movie could have easily settled into maudlin sentimentality or romantic excess, but steered a course through difficult subjects with a mixture of restraint and realistic optimism.
Following the showing, every person I talked with found the movie exceptional. Highly recommended.