You would think that a movie about making soup for your friends and studying moss would be a strange mix, but there’s just something so beautifully delicate about the way writer-director Bas Devos links the lives of two immigrants in Brussels, with the contrast between the length of their stay, the things they make, and how long their work would last. It’s a slow burn connection, and with the pending move, it’s a fleeting one, but the runtime is just right to capture the quiet grace of their connection, the one they share as strangers in a stopping point from different places. Here is subtle and transcendent.
"At only 84 minutes and light on plot, at times this film feels so slight that it might just slip through your fingers. And yet its ethereality is what makes it enchanting."
— Laura Venning
"With a plot so sparse that even a one-sentence summary threatens to spoil an hour of the movie, “Here” manages to present some of the most striking moving images in recent memory."
— Christian Zilko
In Brussels, a construction worker crosses paths with a bryologist.
Planning to move back home to his native Romania, construction worker Stefan plans one last get-together to give soup as a farewell gift for his friends and family. However, his car breaks down, and while waiting for his car to be fixed, he meets Belgian-Chinese doctorate student Shuxiu.
Is it just me, or does Stefan Gota kinda look like Matthias Schoenaerts?
Oh, to make soup to share with your friends.
Cannes
1 nomination
