Director – Pieter Van Hees, Screenplay – Dimitri Karakatsanis & Pieter Van Hees, Story – Christopher Dirickx, Dimitri Karakatsanis & Pieter Van Hees, Producers – Bert Hamelinck, Kato Maes & Frank Van Passel, Photography – Nicolas Karakatsanis, Music – Eavesdropper & Simon Lenski, Makeup Effects – Diana Dreeesen & Saskia Verreycken, Production Design – Johan Van Essche. Production Company – Caviar/VTM/VAF/Kinepolis Group/LVC Consult/Roularta.
Cast
Eline Kuppens (Marie Wuytz), Matthias Schoenaerts (Bobby D’Hondt), Sien Eggers (Bieke), Tom Dewispelaera (Dirk van Biesbeck), Frank Vercruyssen (Gilbert), Marilou Mermans (Jeanne), Ryszard Turbiasz (Vlad), Sisker Bouwen (Katrien), Luc Nuyens (Osteopath)
Plot
In Antwerp, 22-year-old Marie Wuytz is preparing for athletics championships under her coach when she has a fainting spell. She is diagnosed with weak blood and is ordered for bedrest by her doctor, which means missing her big competition. She makes the decision to move in with Bobby D’Hond, a championship archer she met at the track. This goes well, even though Marie’s condition worsens. Marie’s curiosity is pricked by mail left for Hella Govaerts, the previous tenant in the apartment, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Her quest to find what happened to Hella leads to the secrets of the building and what lies in Cellar 51.
Linkeroever was the debut film for Belgian director Pieter Van Hees. Van Hees subsequently went on to make Dirty Mind (2009) and Waste Land (2014), the latter a dark thriller that eventually winds in black magic. All of Van Hees’ work since then has been in tv, usually crime and historical works.
In English language release, Linkeroever has been retitled Left Bank, although this seems a misnomer, even though it is an accurate translation from the Flemish. Linkeroever is an existing place, a suburb of Antwerp, and should be called by its name. It would be like there being a film called Rio de Janeiro and insisting on Anglicising it as River of January. Pieter Van Hees’s direction emphasises the dull, flat and unexceptional ordinariness of Linkeroever. It is all river banks with the ribbon of the main city on the other side, flatlands and faceless residential tower blocks. This was made before desaturated filmmaking became a major trend throughout the 2010s but the film feels very much as though it belong to that visual style.
Eline Kuppens as Marie
Linkeroever is a slow burn film. It takes a long time – more than half the film – before it gives any clear clues as to where it is going. We sit observing Eline Kuppens and her moving in with boyfriend Matthias Schoenaerts, of her finding things slightly off, a mystery built up around the missing former tenant and then what might be down in one of the cellars of the buildings (the subtitles call it a cellar, but it is more one of several storage rooms). Eline Kuppens is a wonderfully fresh face. She doesn’t look at all like she is making an effort to act and brings a naturalistic centre to the story.
It all comes together with a Folk Horror vibe – and well before such themes became more mainstream. This is also the point the film becomes less coherent. [PLOT SPOILERS]. There is a conspiracy among the people around Eline Kuppens but is it unclear to what purpose. Something to do with the black pool in the cellar but it is not sure what that is, who The Archers are, or for that matter why Eline is growing hairs out of the wound in her knee. She seems to have been destined for some purpose but we never find out what that purpose it. The end of the film is also a puzzling flashback to the missing girl and her boyfriend (Elian’s track coach Frank Vercruyssen) as they give birth to a baby, which for some reason they call Marie, the same name as Eline Kuppens’ character.
