Brothers (2011)

Directed by: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah | 20 minutes | short film, drama | Actors: Werner De Smedt, Moraad El Kasmi, Manou Kersting, Nabil Mallat, Elisabeth Puglia

Good and evil, sweet and naughty, who comes to heaven? The Flemish short film ‘Broeders’ is about two Arab brothers, one of whom tries to keep the entire neighborhood on the right path, and the other tries to sell drugs throughout the neighborhood. One shy and secretly in love, the other a player with a girl on each finger. ‘Brothers’ is a parable, a short story with a religious motif. In this case, it’s an Islamic motive, but it might as well have been Biblical in the mindset: you must be good in your heart and in your deeds.

A plot twist makes it exciting for a while, but is not entirely logical or convincing. The drug lords are walking clichés, but the brothers themselves are well explored. ‘Brothers’ opens very cheerfully, with funny montages of the many girls in the car of the ‘bad’ brother. The images are colorful and in the shadowy underworld the images are actually a bit blurry – which works very nicely. But where the beginning is so calm and cheerful, towards the end only the quiet remains and ‘Brothers’ becomes slightly dull. The conclusion does provide food for thought with a particularly moral dilemma. It is at least a memorable parable, for which these film students have already won two awards (Ghent and Leuven Film Festival).