Breath (2010)

Directed by: Hans Van Nuffel | 98 minutes | drama | Actors: Stef Aerts, Wouter Hendrickx, Marie Vinck, Anemone Valcke, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Rik Verheye, Ina Geerts, Kris Cuppens, Maarten Mertens, Anouar Amensour, Mark van den Bos, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Kasper Vandenberghe, Bart Hollanders

At the age of seven, Tom suddenly finds himself in a lecture hall in front of a large group of doctors. Next to him is Xavier, a boy several years older. They are more or less exhibited as patients and their medical records are reviewed. The treating specialist makes a scientific argument supported by statistics and tells casually and nonchalantly that their life expectancy as cystic fibrosis patients (cystic fibrosis) patients is limited.

The story then develops in leaps and bounds. We see Tom again as a seventeen-year-old. He has become a seasoned hospital visitor. He has a somewhat wild circle of friends. In the hospital room next to him is Xavier, the boy with whom he once stood on the medical podium ten years ago. The prophecies have come true, their condition has deteriorated. Things are a bit difficult between them at first, but that changes quickly. Hardened by their illness and their hospital experiences, they may have become cynical, but Xavier has managed to maintain a positive attitude to life. They make crude jokes about their own situation and the troubles of the other: how good are your veins actually due to the many pricking and how much can you still blow?

Xavier’s girlfriend Anneleen suffers from the same disease. She ends their relationship because she finds Xavier’s attitude to life too negative. Xavier absolutely does not want a child, Anneleen does. She accepts the fact that she does not know how long she will be able to take care of a child, but believes that in the end no one knows how old he will be. The life attitude of someone with limited life expectancy is the central theme. So what is life good for if those expectations for the future are limited? How do you view that future, why would you still study if your life is still short? Do you want to enter into a serious relationship or have a child? Should you perhaps choose to ‘live the fun’ for as long as it lasts? Questions that the film obviously cannot answer, but which are addressed.

Questions about this are initially raised in the person of Tom’s brother Lucas, who also suffers from the disease and is now in bad shape. Lucas insists that Tom should use his talents and not be nihilistic in life. The message gets across, but various developments have their own influence on the lives of Tom and Xavier. Anneleen, now pregnant, comes by again after eight months and the three of them make a short trip to the coast. Everything is peaceful and peaceful. During this trip, a suitable donor lung unexpectedly becomes available for Lucas and the risky transplant has to take place immediately. Lucas cannot reach Tom by phone and dramatic developments follow each other in quick succession. Tom gets to know Eline (Anemone Valcke) in the hospital, who is in an isolation room, closed from other patients due to the risk of contamination. Their first kiss (separated by the glass of the window) is touching.

‘Breathe’ is not an easy scoring melodramatic tearjerker. The hospital atmosphere, the literally many oppressive moments in the lives of these patients is realistically elaborated, black and cynical humor (often out of self-protection) is fully present. A nut can be cracked about parts of the scenario: when a friend of Tom’s hits a hospital employee with a broken nose, Tom’s specialist waves this ‘incident’ away, nobody intervenes or asks questions. In the basement, a large part of the hospital stock of medicines is more or less up for grabs. Tom and his friends can almost take them and sell them. Some more nuances would have been appropriate here. The camera work, on the other hand, is beautiful, the cool atmosphere of the hospital corridors well captured. Stef Aerts’ playing as Tom is solid, but Wouter Hendrickx is especially convincing as Xavier.

As a film story, ‘Breathe’ portrays characters in a straight-forward manner and the developments are slightly predictable. The struggle with Tom and Xavier’s feelings about their life expectancy and interpretation is particularly convincing, but the drama is not quite penetrating. ‘Breathe’ is a solid, but not quite breathtaking, debut that manages to move at times.