This is the best horror movie you never seen.
There’s movies you never heard about, movies you should have seen a long time ago, but somehow it never happen. Left Bank is one of those, or Linkeroever as the original title is, an original Belgian horror film whose atmosphere will haunt you for days after. It’s not that it’s the scariest movie I’ve seen - far from - but the ideas, the characters, the ending. I never seen anything quite like it. Well, alright, I’ve seen movies playing around in the same area, but I’m gonna stay away from name dropping - mostly because that will totally spoil it. But I’m not only comparing it to horror films, absolutely not. This is something so much more than a bump in the night.
Eline Kuppens is Marie, a world class runner who aims high but never really gets there. After falling sick she accidentally meets Bob (Matthias Schoenaerts) and they start a very intensive and sexual relationship. To get away from her parents she moves in with him in the area of Linkeroever, Antwerp. He haven’t lived in the apartment for that long either, and it doesn’t take long until Marie finds out the former resident, a young woman, disappeared. But she left some stuff, newspaper clippings and info about the area and the old traditions being practiced there. At least in the past. Bob becomes more and more sloppy, close to a criminal, but Marie hangs on and together with the boyfriend of the woman who disappeared she digs deeper into the mythology of the place and finds secrets no one should have dug up in the first place.
This is something I love, used way too seldom: social realism mixed with horror and mystery. I, like everyone else, dig super-classy Italian horror movies set in mansions. But I often crave for something different, something special. Something I can related to. I was raised in similar apartment complexes as the ones here, always far from the center of town, a bit dirty and gritty, but packed with interesting personalities. Close to the nature, close to water. So I would probably feel at home in the Linkeroever we see in the movie. The thing is also, of course, the wonderful realistic performances from Kuppens and Schoenaerts, bordering to painful as we see how their first love is transformed more and more into fragments.
The mystery is a classic mystery. Mysterious inhabitants of the house, visiting the library and checking out old newspapers and microfiche, asking questions, creating tension. It’s top-notch writing here, and because the rest of the movie deals with it’s own drama it never becomes boring even if it’s told quite slow. It’s hard to discuss it because you really don’t want to say anything about it, but what I can say is that it’s pure horror, it’s dread, it’s depressing drama - but believe it or not, there’s a very interesting hopefulness about it also. At first I was skeptical, but the more I’ve thought about it the better it gets.
For me who tends to dislike movies who wants to go the cynical, non-human path, this was a revelation. I always thought it would be yet another depressing, downbeat horror-thriller - and it is in a way - but there’s more than meets the eye at first. I suggest you to watch the movie and then get back into the comments down below and tell me what you think of the ending - without spoiling it for future audiences of course. It’s a brilliant film, so you gotta watch it sooner or later!
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