“The Broken Circle Breakdown” starts with both hope and unfathomable sorrow. Parents Didier and Elise face the uncertain fate of their young daughter, Maybelle, who is diagnosed with cancer.
Director Felix van Groeningen’s multilayered love story is Belgium’s entry for the best foreign-language Oscar.
And while we aren’t likely to see, even in this film-loving burg, even half of the 76 entries (soon to be whittled to five contenders) anytime soon, “Broken Circle Breakdown” is one of the finer foreign-language releases of 2013. It had a special screening during and is now open at the Mayan.
Johan Heldenbergh portrays the sweetly charismatic frontman for a bluegrass band in Beligium. Veerle Baetens is the at times vulnerable, other times bold tattoo artist.
Not only does Elise complete Didier — in the way subtle opposites so often do — she comes into the all-male band and tweaks its fortunes with her clear-achy vocals.
Not surprisingly music is central to the film, and the soulful, blazing, melancholy strains and wails of American roots music provide ballast and buoyancy. The soundtrack’s lights and shadows are complemented by Ruben Impens’ luminous cinematography.
The poetic title refers to plenty: from the often reworked Christian hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to the film’s fractured yet engrossing narrative structure.
As the mood darkens, “Broken Circle Breakdown” proves to be a heady but emotionally rich rumination on religion and reason. Elise and Didier face their daughter’s crisis with deeply divergent views. The fate of even a bird underscores just how far apart they’ve flown from each other.
One of the more compelling aspects of the movie may be the way in which Didier loves and loathes America. His and Elise’s tragedy unfolds during the George W. Bush years. The birthplace of mandolinist Bill Monroe and the bluegrass music he plays with devotion is also the nation of religious-backed, anti-stem-cell activism. America has given Didier music and condemned his daughter.
Groeningen and co-writer Carl Joos have done a remarkable job of taking what was a play, written by star Heldenbergh, and making it deeply cinematic. “Broken Circle” has a strong sense of place: be it the honky tonk where Didier’s band first performs; the rambling house he, Elise, and Maybelle call home, or the hospital in which they spend fraught times.
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, lkennedy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bylisakennedy
