Spoorloos (George Sluizers, 1988)
Spoorloos haunts me, and it might for the rest of my life. I can’t write about this film without giving away the ending, so be aware of what you’re getting into if you keep reading.
Sabzian is an international film magazine, hailing from Belgium.Sabzian est une revue de cinéma internationale, originaire de Belgique.Sabzian is een internationaal filmtijdschrift, afkomstig uit België.
Sabzian is a free online magazine that relies on the work of a group of dedicated volunteers. We could use your support. Please consider a donation! Sabzian est un magazine en ligne gratuit qui dépend du travail d’un groupe de bénévoles dévoués. Votre soutien nous aide beaucoup. Pensez à faire un don ! Sabzian is een gratis online magazine dat afhankelijk is van het werk van een groep toegewijde vrijwilligers. We kunnen uw steun goed gebruiken. Overweeg een donatie!
Le chantier de gosses (Jean Harlez, 1970)
Jean Harlez (1924–2026), once dubbed “the savage of Belgian cinema,” was a self-taught filmmaker working outside professional circles. After assisting Charles Dekeukeleire and later working as a cameraman for Marcel Broodthaers, Harlez decided to build his own 35mm camera. With little financial support, he made a first feature film: Le chantier des gosses (1970). Praised at the time as “the first Belgian neo-realist feature film,” it disappeared from view until Cinema Nova in Brussels restored and rereleased it in 2014, when it finally found a wide audience.
Related
Selection
This Week’s Agenda
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This week’s selection brings together three films that make similar use of the tracking shot, placing long hallway takes at the center of their aesthetic.
In L’année dernière à Marienbad, Resnais’s Nouvelle Vague classic, tracking shots are used to follow a woman and a man as they walk through the hallways of a luxurious hotel. He tries to convince her that they met last year, and she struggles to remember. As the camera traces their every step, we slowly descend into their labyrinthine minds, where every corridor leads to a different memory, dream or image. Through the tracking shots, Resnais turns the hotel into a maze of forgetting, remembering and doubt.
In Hotel Monterey, Akerman also lets her camera roam through a run-down hotel in New York. Starting with static, long takes of the lobby, rooms and deserted corridors, the camera suddenly begins to move, leading us through the claustrophobic hallways all the way to the top floor, where it lets us escape through a window. Here, too, the wandering camera movements endow the space with a certain subjectivity, unveiling the hotel’s inner duration. As Akerman explains: ‘I want people to lose themselves in the frame and at the same time to be truly confronting the space.’
Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, a film about a high school shooting, features one of the most disturbing uses of the tracking shot. Showing the shooters on their killing spree, Van Sant frames them from behind with a “follow shot” that mimics the aesthetics of first-person shooter video games. Refusing emotionally charged editing, he uses long gliding tracking shots to generate a sense of detachment from the violent actions, forcing their banality into view.
Belgian Premieres and Festivals
Each month, Sabzian lists upcoming Belgian premieres, releases and festivals.
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