This version is about “Close” first appeared in the International Race issue of ’s awards magazine.
Lukas Dhont’s second film, “Close” The story is about a 13-year old boy (newcomers Eden Dambrine & Gustav De Waele), and the rift between them. The touching, delicate drama reduced the audiences to tears during its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Dhont received the Jury Prize. His first film was made four years ago. “Girl” won the festival’s Camera d’Or for best debut feature.)
Now the film has been selected as Belgium’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at this year’s Oscars. Belgium has been nominated 7 times, but it has not won. This could change. “Close” at next March’s awards. Some pundits have even speculated whether Dhont might land in the best director lineup – joining the six foreign-language filmmakers (Alfonso Cuarón, Pawel Pawlikowski, Bong Joon-ho, Lee Isaac Chung, Thomas Vinterberg, Ryusuke Hamaguchi) who have been nominated in the past four years.
On the eve of the film’s theatrical release (A24 is the U.S. distributor), the 31-year-old Dhont spoke with about his inspirations for the film. These mythical stories that actors are discovered by chance on passenger trains, for example, may sometimes prove to be real.
This film is about two childhood best friends who are nearing adolescence. The story was inspired by what?
The book called “The Book That Fueled Film Writing” is an excellent resource. “Deep Secrets” Niobe, an American professor. Five years of research into American boys led her to discover that they shared these sweet testimonies of affection with their 13-year-old friends. This was without stigma. At 15 years old, she asks the girls the same questions again. By 18 they are not ready to share the same emotions and intimacy. They’ve distanced themselves from that vulnerable, tender language.
Comment did it affect you?
My heart was broken. I didn’t grow up in America, I’m from the Flemish countryside, and I also grew up queer, but I felt like I went through a very similar experience. In my puberty, the pressures of masculinity made me distance myself from other young men and people. This has little to do with sexuality in many ways. This is the way we see tenderness, and what we want to classify them.
Does the professor responsible for the book know about your film?
She is aware of the film. A friend had informed her about my film so she reached out on Instagram to discuss it. Now we text every day and she’s over the moon about it. She is going to meet me in New York. It is called the Crisis of Masculinity. She shows us how to identify it. I have been able to understand its nuances through her research.
It also helped you to see the potential of a movie on this subject.
Yes, I understood I wanted to make a film about a strong connection between young men where we would allow the space to be tender and intimate and sensual even, which you don’t always get to see. Show us what loss of intimacy and tenderness means for human beings.
In the film, these two boys notice that their friendship is categorized as romantic by other classmates, simply because they’re close.
Exactly. I wanted to make a film about a strong connection between young men, where we allow the space to be tender and intimate and sensual even, which you don’t always get to see. Next, show us what losing connection is like for human beings. And as I figured out the whole arc of the story, I thought a lot about these two words—fragility and brutality—as the themes I wanted to explore.
How did you discover the young actor Eden Dambrine, who is so natural and affecting in the lead role of Léo?
Actually, it was on a train. It’s the type of story that when I read about it, I don’t believe it. As I listened to the story, I was on a train going from Antwerp towards Ganz. Max Richter music. Everything becomes a film when you’re listening to Max Richter. I looked beside me and there was a boy talking with his friends and I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was very expressive with his big eyes and he was clearly making a point. And I felt like, “This is one of those moments. If you don’t say anything now, you will regret it.”
Was that what you said to him?
I asked him if acting was something he would be interested in. It was obvious that he expressed an interest. He was also surrounded by his friends. There was an advantage because I’d already made a feature film and his mother could Google me. We saw many boys but Eden (costar), Gustav (De Waele), gravitated to each other. They were also helping one another. The film was successful because there felt to be a possibility for friendship and collaboration. They were so happy to have been in the film. To win the film, they were there.
Léo’s family lives and works on a flower farm, and several scenes take place among the fields. How important was that scene for you?
The first image I saw on my moodboard was a picture of two boys running through flowers when I was thinking very early about the story. There was lots of nature growing up where I was raised. This was something I cherished from my childhood. It is also symbolic of fragility. The structure of the movie and its plot points were based on the realization that fragility and tenderness must be the starting point. After this, society will need to break down these things.
Around halfway through, there’s a pivotal plot point which changes the course of the movie.
Well, when that plot point arrives, it is a way of radically expressing the importance of the boys’ connection. Also, we were all experiencing the pandemic, so grief was a prominent dramaturgic theme. While we place a great deal of emphasis on our physical health, mental well-being still takes second. This idea is really embraced by young people when we screen them.
The film opens and closes in the flower field, but the scenes are completely different. What do you want to accomplish with the end?
Over the course of one season we see the farm, the bright colors changing to the violence of the machines creating this dark atmosphere. But what I love about the ending is that there’s a possibility of a return to that earlier fragility, to that tenderness, to that world that we saw in the beginning. On the other hand, I wanted to say that so many of us don’t have certain people in our lives anymore, but there is a possibility to carry them within us. It is a powerful, optimistic realization. I find that there is beauty in that thought.
Learn more in the International Race issue Here
