Mysterious ways

Flemish shorts director and writer Dimitri Karakatsanis takes his first stint at the helm of a feature with this elegaic study of coping with loss.

Following her young son’s tragic death in a car crash that she survived, Elena (Steffi Peeters) is kidnapped from hospital by a mysterious stranger, David, who appears to have heightened powers of perception – able to ‘feel’ Elena’s grief, he takes her for a long cross-country trek in an old camper van, picking up another troubled soul, Moeder (Marijke Pinoy), en route. It’s certainly the path less-travelled by, and the journey’s outcome is very far from certain…

It’s a troubling work – despite its mere 80-odd minutes running time, the narrative drags by nature of its deliberate banality, but there are nevertheless more than a few moments of sublimely surreal invention.

Karakatsanis’s approach does lend suspense and intrigue; as the story is being related by Peeters to a lawyer (Dirk van Dijck), the viewer is signalled early that the tale she is recounting must be building to a potentially catastrophic conclusion. Still, there’s not really enough space in the construct or running time for the in-depth characterisations that such a premise deserves, with the sense growing of set pieces being a touch rushed.

Worth a view, but don’t expect much in the way of the conventional.

www.smallgodsthemovie.com
Dutch language. 85 mins.