North Sea Texas

North Sea Texas

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Bavo Defurne
Produced by Yves Verbraeken
Written by Bavo Defurne
Yves Verbraeken
Based on Nooit gaat dit over
by André Sollie
Starring Jelle Florizoone
Mathias Vergels
Eva Van Der Gucht
Katelijne Damen
Noor Ben Taouet
Music by Adriano Cominotto
Cinematography Anton Mertens
Edited by Els Voorspoels
Production
company
Indeed films
Mollywood
Eén
Distributed by Kinepolis Film Distribution (Belgium)
Cinemien (Netherlands)
Strand Releasing (USA)
Peccadillo Pictures (UK)
Release dates
  • 16 March 2011 (2011-03-16)
Running time
 96 minutes[1]
Country Belgium
Language Dutch

North Sea Texas (Dutch: Noordzee, Texas) is a 2011 Flemish drama film and the first feature from cult director Bavo Defurne,[2] starring Jelle Florizoone and Mathias Vergels. The screenplay was written by Bavo Defurne and Yves Verbraeken and is based in the 2004 children's novel Nooit gaat dit over by Andre Sollie.[3] The film follows the story of Pim, a boy - living with his reckless mother - who falls in love with his male best friend, Gino.

Plot

A young Pim and his mother Yvette attend a fair where they meet fairworker Zoltan. Zoltan decides to rent a room in their house when he is in town, but after a few years he does not show up again. The film then jumps some years into the future.

Pim and Yvette live in a run-down house somewhere at the Belgian coast. She is a local accordion "starlet" and her fat friend Etienne drives her on the nights she has to “perform". Pim is slightly older but still childish. One day he goes inside his mother's room and dresses up with his mother's pageant clothing. She walks in on him, but remains calm. Young Pim is then introduced to Gino, who is 3 years older, Sabrina and their mother, Marcella, and adopts them as a second family.

Pim is now 14 on the eve of his 15th birthday. He remains close friends with Gino. They share an intimate moment when they masturbate in front of each other. Pim asks for the dirty cloth which Gino just used to clean himself and keeps it in his small treasure memory box together with some clothes of his mother that he used to wear.

On his birthday he visits Marcella. Sabrina asks her mother if Pim can stay the night. He and Gino sleep in a tent on the beach and have an intimate kiss after some hesitation and are suggested to have had sex. During next month, their relationship develops. However, one day after having sex at the pond, Gino begins to go to De Panne on a regular basis. The two begin to go farther apart. Gino seems to have a girlfriend named Francoise and he now lives in Dunkirk with her. Pim becomes isolated and returns to drawing and escapes in his dream world. Back at the house of Sabrina and Marcella, Sabrina catches Gino and Francoise being intimate. Pim also saw them being intimate from an open window as he stood in front of their house. Pim then vandalises Gino's motorcycle. He becomes depressed and cries at home over this. When Gino come down and finds the motorcycle vandalised, he finds the cloth he had given to Pim all those years ago wrapped around the exhaust pipe.

Later, Sabrina tries to become more intimate with Pim as she is infatuated with him. Under a pretext Francoise will rent Yvette's room, she sneakily searches the room of Pim and finds a drawing of a half-naked Gino. Sabrina is infuriated by this and becomes hostile to Pim whenever she sees him. She remarks her mother Pim might be homosexual and in love with Gino, but Marcella does not respond to this. Later, Yvette breaks her friendship with Etienne and claims that he attempted to rape her. Zoltan turns up and once again rents Yvette's spare room. Yvette becomes attracted to Zoltan. Pim is also sexually interested in Zoltan but last one does not get Pims' intentions.

When Pim is almost 17 years, Gino makes contact and they meet up. Gino claims that the intimate moments they shared was merely a game and part of them being kids and denies to be in love with him. Pim thumps Gino so that he falls to the floor and then runs home where he later finds his mother and Zoltan having sex. He runs away from home for the evening. When he comes back, he finds that his mother and Zoltan absconded and left him behind. Pim gets the impression that everyone left him behind and gets more and more introverted.

Marcella offers Pim Gino's room which upsets Sabrina. Some time later, Marcella has to go to hospital due to her kidneys. On her deathbed she shows her children a picture of their father whom they never knew. She asks for the hand of Gino in her right hand and Pim in her left. She then lifts her hands and puts the two boys' hands together, accepting their likely homosexuality. The two hold hands for a brief moment in which Marcella dies. The death of Marcella further drives Pim to truly believe he is alone in this world. He burns the box with all his treasured possessions. Pim then strips down naked and runs into the ocean saying the letters of the alphabet and lets the waves overcome him.

On Marcella's funeral, Pim asks Gino where Francoise is. He claims she's sick. Pim and Sabrina now live in Marcella's home together and begin to mend their strained friendship ever since Sabrina found out Pim was gay. On a rainy day Gino walks in. After some chitchat with Pim, Gino grabs him and moves him against the wall. He hands Pim back the cloth telling him to tie a knot in it so that he will never forget him. He then proceeds to kiss Pim on the neck and the two embrace one another passionately. Pim tells Gino to "stay" and the film ends with the two of them embracing each other.[4]

Music

Theme Song - Wooly Clouds by Little Auk

Cast

Critical reception

The film received positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% out of 26 professional critics gave the film a positive review.[7] Henry Barnes from The Guardian said that "North Sea Texas looks beautiful, is acted brilliantly, but it's hard to get a hold on when Pim's drifting by in a dream world."[8] Allan Hunter from the Daily Express called it "A delicate little heartwarmer of a film."[2]

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of the Chicago Sun-Times panned it, and compared the film to the director's previous efforts: “So why is it that Campfire is engrossing, while North Sea Texas is frequently dull?”[9] Vishnevetsky notes this is Bavo Defurne's first feature-length film, having made short films since 1990, and Defurne fails to develop the characters or story with the extra time.[10]

Awards

At the 2011 edition of the Montreal International Film Festival, the film received two prizes: the "Silver Zenith for the First Fiction Feature Film" and the "Fipresci Prize for a film in the First Films Competition".[11] In late October, the film premiered at the Rome International Film Festival. It was warmly welcomed there, receiving the Marc'Aurelio Alice nella Città 13 + Award of the Festival.[12]

In January, the film was selected for the Palm Springs International Film Festival, along with four other Flemish films. It was released in the United States by Strand Releasing, after it bought the film rights to Wavelength Pictures.[13]

The film was also screened at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and was released April 6, 2012 in the UK. In 2013 it was screened in the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival, TLVFest.

References

  1. ↑ "NORTH SEA TEXAS (15)". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
  2. 1 2 Hunter, Allan (2012-04-06). "North Sea, Texas film review". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
  3. ↑ Stéphanie Grofils (2011-03-16). "La force de la nature et du silence". Lalibre.be. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
  4. ↑ From the official homepage
  5. ↑ "Official website". Noordzeetexas.be. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
  6. ↑ Noordzee, Texas - IMDB full cast
  7. ↑ "North Sea Texas". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-09-01.
  8. ↑ Henry Barnes (2012-04-05). "North Sea Texas review". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
  9. ↑ Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy (2013-02-12), "North Sea Texas", rogerebert.com, retrieved 2013-05-11
  10. ↑ "Bavo Defurne - IMDb", Internet Movie Database, retrieved 2013-05-11
  11. ↑ Awards of the World Film Festival - Montreal 2011 Archived March 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ "Marc'Aurelio Alice Laureates". Critamorcinema.it. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
  13. ↑ "Strand nabs 'North Sea Texas'". Variety.com. 2012-01-04. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/20/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.