Veerle Baetens The Broken Circle Breakdown

Veerle Baetens The Broken Circle Breakdown

Cast: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Nell Cattrysse, Geert Van Rampelberg, Nils De Caster Robby Cleiren, Bert Huysentruyt, Jan Bijvoet
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance
Running Time: 110 minutes

Synopsis: Elise and Didier have been together for seven passionate years. When their little girl Maybelle must face a serious illness, all the turning points in their intense and moving relationship seem to flash by.

They remember their love at first sight, courtship and passion, coming closer through their bluegrass music band, braving marriage, unexpected pregnancy and eventually the joy of parenthood after the birth of beautiful Maybelle. A complete circle of happiness for this very unconventional couple…

But as the stress and sorrow of Maybelle's treatment takes its toll, Didier and Elise begin to respond in different ways. They fight together for their child, as they hope love will not let them down when they need it most. Love can conquer fate, but sometimes not.

The Broken Circle Breakdown
Release Date: May 15th, 2014

 

About The Production

Origin Of The Project

The Broken Circle Breakdown is an adaptation of a theatre play by Johan Heldenbergh. Johan Heldenbergh is a friend and I've worked with him as an actor on two of my previous films. When I saw his play I was totally flabbergasted. The combination of the personal story, the music, and the theme (reason vs religion) just blew me away. Johan Heldenbergh is very interested in film, so he was very excited when I expressed my interest in an adaptation. He was also in favour of not collaborating on the screenwriting. So I started working on the script together with screenwriter Carl Joos, but we had to start over a couple of times, before we could really crack it, as it was a pretty complex story.


Difficulties Of Adaptation

I had concerns about adapting the play to the screen. The play was so perfect that I wasn't sure the film was going to reach the same high standards. I debated if it was really worth making it. That particular romantic drama genre wasn't my cup of tea either. The play also had a lot of monologues, which isn't very cinematic material. It had so many layers. I had the feeling that I would never be able to translate them into a film. But in the end it was my gut-feeling that convinced me. I was so deeply touched by this play that this would give me the energy to somehow find a way to make it work. I also felt that the fact that it wasn't going to be easy, would make it an interesting and personal film. All the not-so-evident particularities (bluegrass, melodrama) became the challenging features of the project.


Structure

The structure of The Broken Circle Breakdown was created during editing. It was always the idea to cross-cut between different times of Didier and Elise's life, but the concept of the script was different than how it ended up being in the final film. This however, has been the case with almost all of my films. Longtime collaborator editor Nico Leunen is a real magician with this kind of storytelling, and my films have benefitted a lot from it. The main reason, I guess, is that my films are not plotted storywise but emotion wise. And there are always a lot of things that work very different on screen (as opposed to on paper), so questioning all this during editing has become an uninevitable part of my filmmaking process.


Johan Heldenbergh as Didier

Johan Heldenbergh co-wrote the play and starred in it, and while adapting it, it never crossed my mind that he shouldn't play this role. The reason is simple: he and his character Didier are very much alike. They like to talk and don't mind being in the center of things. They have opinions on almost everything. Didier's atheist view on life is also very much Johan Heldenberg's. There is a difference between theatre and film however, and during rehearsals Johan Heldenbergh and I researched other sides of Didiers character that he didn't need to explore on stage. This was a very interesting process, and we both learned a lot from it.


Veerle Baeten as Elise

The character of Elise is an enigma. She's very strong and very fragile at the same time. She loves life, but on the other hand has been so extremely hurt by it. As the film is more explicit than the theatre play in some ways, I had to alter some characteristics of Elise, but in a lot of ways they stayed a mystery to me too, up until I met Veerle Baeten during an audition. At that moment, everything came together.

She had to play Elise, and Veerle Baeten would give her the balls Elise needed. Veerle Baeten is a real pitbull, she bites and won't let go until it's over. She-s a perfectionist, on every level.


Love

The film is about more than just parental love. It-s about the love between two people who are extremely different and about loss: how you lose one another, whereas that-s the very last thing in the world that you want. The film recounts how difficult it is for both our protagonists, Didier and Elise, to accept this concept when their little daughter becomes ill. Didier conceals his sorrow with great principles and theories, Elise escapes into symbolism, religion and superstition. I understand that sorrow can be so overwhelming (the loss of a child!) that people feel the need to make up stories about a God, heaven and a life after death. I suspect that many people recognise this fencestraddling attitude. On the one side rationally convinced that there is no God or life after death, yet on the other, emotionally open to it because there is no other way.

We find the same duality in Elise and Didier. As long as things are going well, their opposite views on life are usually a source of amusement or at most they lead to a heated discussion. However, when their daughter develops a life-threatening illness, these diametrically opposed views lead to a dramatic climax, because Elise and Didier are completely torn apart in their inner selves. In the end, this causes them to lose both themselves as well as each other.

Bluegrass

Didier and Elise play in a bluegrass band and that is no accident. Bluegrass is integrated in a variety of ways into the story and forms the intrinsic link between all the main issues that appear in the film: live, death, birth, America, motherhood and fatherhood, finding consolation, life after death, ... Music is also what unites the couple. We have tried to let the songs find theirspot in the scenario in a more organised manner and by doing so, give them the greatest possible dramatic impact. Sometime a song is purely narrative and helps to tell the story or is even used as an ellipsis. In other places, we select a given song because it underpins the emotions.

While writing the screenplay, we put in songs from the original play. But, as I got to know more and more bluegrass songs, other songs found their way into the script. Bjorn Eriksson composed the bluegrass songs and also created the score. Meeting Bjorn was very important for the film, in lots of ways. You have to know that a lot of bluegrass musicians have something nerdy, but that is not how I saw Didier and Elise. Bjorn Eriksson has been a bluegrass aficionado since he was 16.

But he's also a very cool guy, and so meeting him, influenced not only the sound but also the look of the film.  Jorn Eriksson conducted the recordings and guided Johan and Veerle's perfomances to the max (they sing everything themselves!). Bjorn Eriksson himself plays dobro and guitar.


Elise's Tattoos

The tattoos were designed by Emy La Perla, a Brusselsbased tattoo designer I interviewed for research I did during preparation. It was a marvelous encounter, I learned a lot about tattooing and I loved her  drawingstyle, so I asked her if she wanted to design them. The tattoo's were mentioned in the play, but became a leitmotiv in the film. I guess it was just too nice not to actually see them and use them fully in the story.

The Broken Circle Breakdown
Release Date: May 15th, 2014