Pathetics (2018)

Directed by: Yahya Terryn | 27 minutes | short film, comedy | Actors: Tom Vermeir, Koen De Graeve

‘Pathetics’ is about two men in their forties. One, Ludo, invited the other, Karl, to attend a piano concert in De Minard in Ghent. A highly unusual location, as it soon turns out, you would expect these gentlemen to settle down with a beer in the neighborhood pub, at the weekly game of squash or at the summer family barbecue. The relationship between the two men is not immediately clear, but it is evident that they have had a relationship for many years.

Somewhat giggly they discuss the situation, in unadulterated Flemish, in which everything is ‘clean’ (beautiful). “Clean room, clean piano, clean pianist too.” Then Ludo drops a bomb. That pianist, apparently that’s his new girlfriend. So that means that he has left his old flame and that comes as a shock to Karl. The poor man doesn’t know how to handle this newfound news.

‘Pathetics’ is about the long-standing friendship between two men that comes to a head when one of them removes the foundation (which most likely was laid later, this friendship seems to have existed since high school). The dry way these guys handle this leads to awkward and inappropriate situations, which are very funny. The two gentlemen have an excellent sense of timing and theater director Yahya Terryn also proves that he can handle the medium of film very well.

Warning in advance: in Belgian the word ‘poepen’ has a completely different meaning than in Dutch.