Page 81 - Metropolis Megazine nº118
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VITRIVAL - THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
VILLAGE IN THE WORLD
“This is Vitrival, not CSI New are intertwined. But it is not pure behind several suicides in the
York.” This phrase, uttered in a comedy. And, in a heavier vein, village.
café in the small Belgian village almost always off-screen, suicides
of Vitrival, serves as a kind of multiply, casting a shadow over Both mysteries are, in fact,
motto for the rest of the film the community. symptoms of the subtext that is
by Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste always present in the film, without
Bogaert, winner of the Canais "Vitrival – The Most Beautiful ever coming to a boiling point: that
TVCine Special Jury Prize at Village in the World" (2025) of routine and life in closed circles
IndieLisboa 2025. explores all these points in smaller communities, where you
without committing too much always see the same faces in the
This Belgian production is not, in to any one of them. It follows usual places. This eternal return
fact, CSI: New York, nor any other the routine of police officers is, for some, a place of comfort
police drama, despite focusing Pierre (Pierre Bastin) and Benji and, for others, a tormenting
on the perspective of two quiet (Benjamin Lambillotte), who are emptiness. Bastin and Bogaert (in
police officers from Vitrival. It happy with life in their small the dual role of screenwriter and
draws inspiration from a comedy village, as they seek to identify director) demonstrate this duality
of manners steeped in dry the author of the obscene in an exquisite, realistic, and even
humour to portray life in small graffiti that is beginning to tender way. Any similarity between
rural towns where everyone appear in Vitrival and, at the Vitrival and so many other small
knows each other and their lives same time, understand what is towns is not pure coincidence. MVF
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