C’est déjà l’été (2010)

Directed by: Martijn Maria Smits | 84 minutes | drama | Actors: Patrick Descamps, Benjamin Willem, Julie Anson

Prior to shooting ‘C’est déjà l’été’, Martijn Smits lived for a few months in Seraing, where the film is set. In any case, the courage of a young director to venture into the fraught Walloon misery, so aptly portrayed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. And in their own city. Smits – winner of the audience award in Bilbao with his graduation film ‘Otzenrath’ from 2006 – still lacks an unforgettable protagonist like Rosetta from the film of the same name by the Dardenne brothers, but with ‘C’est déjà l’été’ he has succeeded raw-realistic and documentary portrait made of a disadvantaged family, in which sympathy for those involved predominates and the misery is at the same time well rubbed in: the misadventures of the teenagers Marie (Julie Anson) and Benjamin (Benjamin Willem) Bournonville settle in the frame like moisture during a camping holiday.

Father Jean (Patrick Descamps) – an unemployed man in his fifties with an apathy only encountered in real life – seems to shirk his responsibility out of sheer despair and ignorance; Benjamin keeps himself alive with babysitting money from his sister – a teenage mother – and regularly skips school for that reason; Marie uses the freedom at home to live it up – not even out of luxury. However, it is Benjamin who is most moved, because he still takes care of Marie’s baby, while he cuts off strands of her himself out of boredom; Also impressive is a slowed-down image of Marie on the back of a moped with the child in her arms. The amateurs Anson and Willem seem to be excellently coached by Smits and put in a fine performance; nevertheless, professional Descamps (‘Versailles’) makes the most impression as Jean, in a film without a denouement but with a fitting conclusion, consisting of a series of portrait shots of average families in Seraing, the last being that of Jean Bournonville.