Tombville

I don't know very much about Belgium.  Apparently some of their filmmakers follow the French style of cinema, which in my experience often involves existential madness, poor lighting, and melodramatic music.  Tombville delivers on all of the above.  David finds himself in a town sort of, or at least a place with some buildings (it's very dark).  He doesn't remember anything at first, including his name, but quickly finds himself on the run from the town's inhabitants, unable to escape until he remembers how he arrived.  Memories of his childhood, with his verbally abusive prostitute mother, are intermixed, tracing through his life up to it's defining moment.

Tombville

2014, 69 minutes, directed by Nikolas List

Welp (Cub)

Scouts, in the woods, but there's something out there...

There's something weird about society.  No, it's not the existence of a cub-scout-themed horror film.  It's the fact that, of all the deaths in the film, it's the dog's death that makes the audience uncomfortable.

Welp (Cub)
2014, 85 minutes, directed by Jonas Govaerts

La cinquième saison (The Fifth Season)

When I saw that Casa Kafka was a sponsor of this French-Belgian production, I knew it would be hopeless, depressing, senseless. In a small Belgian town, nature simply...stops. Chickens no longer lay eggs, cows stop producing milk, field lay fallow, trees die but won't burn. Young Alice and her friend Tom suffer and cope, with traveling beekeeper Pol and his son Octave as the only ones who maintain their senses against the seemingly global calamity. As food grows scarce and desperation grows, even they can't stop the tide of insanity.

There's seriously nothing cheerful about this film. Be warned.

La cinquième saison (The Fifth Season)
2012, 93 minutes, directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth

JCVD

This is Jean Claude Van Damme's Lost in Translation. Faced with the reality of aging, he makes up for years of shitty action films by making one with almost no action at all. See this as soon as you can, and grab your buddies at the office to bring along.

JCVD
2008, 96 minutes, directed by Mabrouk El Mechri

Linkeroever (Left Bank)

As expected, Alamo's wireless network failed yesterday. It's not the signal strength that's the problem, it's the DHCP server or the router. Eventually they just run out of or stop serving IP addresses. Thank goodness for Maudie's Cafe down the street and their free, functional wireless.

Anyway, I don't have much to say about Left Bank. It's a dark film, with predictable turns and a confusing ending. If you're up for run-of-the mill occult secret drama, go for it.

Linkeroever (Left Bank)
2008, 102 minutes, directed by Pieter Van Hees