And amont du fleuve (2016)

Directed by: Marion Hänsel | 90 minutes | adventure, drama | Actors: Olivier Gourmet, Sergi López, John Lynch, Igor Kovac, Niksa Butijer, Damir Raic, Peter Dukic, Demagoj Nekic, Ana Nekic, Edita Benic

Two exhausted fifties (Olivier Gourmet and Sergi Lopez) on a boat in beautiful Croatia. Haven’t we seen enough displaced menfolk meaningfully silent and that it was good? Because men only come to meaningful communication in nature and with each other – preferably after hitting each other with a black eye? Will it never stop?

No, it never ends. ‘En amont du fleuve’ (‘Upstream’) is a film with little dramatic fat on the bones, but also quite sympathetic. It is a road movie à deux without major set changes. A real-time document in which the darkness has actually been left dark, and that is not meant to be metaphorical. Men have no deeper layer, at least not the two movie characters Homer (Gourmet) and Joé (Lopez).

Actually, these men – half-brothers with a joint father – discuss quite a lot, in their dryly comical way: relationships with parents and work are reviewed. An encounter with an Irishman brings swells in the water, rippling waves that also quickly disappear. The dog who struggled with it dies on a hike; that is sad. While there’s chemistry between Gourmet and Lopez, Lopez’s clownish grin smothers any emotion — for what it’s worth.

Of course there are blows – even if little happens, but the stronger sex needs little. Ah men, ‘they drank a glass, they took a pee and everything remained as it was’ – the sex made redundant and therefore only concerned with itself. Incidentally, copied from women, who are busy with themselves, but too late – much too late. The strength of ‘En amont du fleuve’ is the absence of the opposite sex, and the absence of psychologization. Are these aspects related? You and I know the answer.