Heyday (2021)

Directed by: Ben van Lieshout | 90 minutes | documentary

You may know Ben van Lieshout from the documentary ‘Snelweg’ (2019), an atmospheric impression of the mechanical Dutch highway life; a world of things – less of people. Van Lieshout had seen that well, the field staff of the Netherlands knows. It is no coincidence that he also shows an above-average interest in Russian desolation. ‘Heyday’ is an account of the decline of a peninsula on the fringes of the European continent: Kola, the horse’s head east of Finland.

In the revolutionary days of the last century, Kola was a spearhead in the Russian upliftment of the people, whatever that might mean in a totalitarian state under construction. Mining in this case; the movie “tells [sic] about the heyday of the old, optimistic generations and their shattered ideals; […] about an area that is severely affected by the mining industry and about a young generation that mainly wants to leave,” says distributor Mokum.

The work of Van Lieshout has already been mentioned above, but is somewhat misleading. He has a keen eye for detail, and presents his world with photographic sharpness – as in a commercial. That is artistry, creating a contrast with the content shown. Van Lieshout did the same in ‘Snelweg’: close-ups of empty coffee cups rolling in the wind in a parking lot. The visual acuity puts the viewer on edge, of which note.

In ‘Heydays’ you get the feeling of watching the deteriorating world of Von Trier. With the same dramatic sense of doom: something is going down here. The daily calm before the storm. Stills of snow-capped peaks and historic buildings seem casual, but then again refer to Dumont’s deterministic world. When does Van Lieshout make a drama production? It doesn’t take that much extra effort, just good actors who understand his work.

A little more human in a world of things, that would be nice.