Notes on Kind Hearts, by Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes, Belgium: 2022-Berlin Filmfestival II.-Generation

Before the film unfolds its unagitated but beautiful portrait of a young couple between final secondary school examinations and University, it offers a very special opening: A swing carousel on a fun fair. The swing carousel appears as a microcosm with different character constellations in it like a father with his son, immigrants, the young couple and many more. They are not only exposed to the centrifugal force but this carousel also screws itself to dizzying height. It is already dizzying to watch and I do not envy the cinematographer. Cinema which has its roots in fun fairs and strangely the film seems to remember where it comes from before it enfolds its subtle cultivated portrait of this couple. At the first sight it seems as a very unorthodox opening for a documentary which is mostly about the every day life of ordinary people. After this fierce introduction, the film will calm down image after image. As it mostly consists of quiet conversations, it will offer a total different cinematic attraction. Just to think about the strange relationship between this opening and the quiet but high concentrated flow of this film can inspire to philosophize about the two elements of Cinema, the movement (or the cinematic illusion of movement) and the static. As Kind Hearts belongs rather to the family of Yasujiro Ozu or Germany´s finest documentary filmmaker Peter Nestler, it begins with exuberant movements like in films of the masters of articulated camera movements Ophüls, Malick, Murnau or Kubrick.

The young couple´s (Lucas and Billie) life is in transition. First of all, they are trying to find out what to do after school what to choose to study at the university. But their relationship is also in transition. They are still too close to break up but already thinking secretly about it as an option. Lucas (“DJ Lucas”) helps a young woman who is a singer with “polishing the sound” As fragmental all these moments appear at the first sight, a few moments later almost nothing in this film seems accidental. The people are not just filmed, they themselves seem to “polish up” their appearance, the image from themselves. And as the film proceeds, whole human lives are through or despite this fragmental structure perceptible in all its gravitation. The recorded conversation remind me also in one of the most difficult aspects of a documentary – to find a balance between closeness, means to learn something about these people and a certain discretion to protect their privacy. Kind Hearts manages this difficult balance with somnambulistic eloquence. The seeming “lightness” of the most parts of the film in contrast to the powerful opening scene disappears slowly. Are the protagonists exposed to mighty physical forces at the beginning, what now dominates is the invisible gravitation of human life with all its ramifications.

There is a wonderful moment which takes place in an Italian restaurant. Billie and Lucas are sitting ans talking not yet openly about separation but carefully about “giving each other more space”, more time for themselves. In the background we hear quiet folkloristic music. Seemingly nothing happens and without being able to put the finger on why, it nevertheless appears to me as pure cinema. It is one of this seldom immersions into the image of the world the film offers. As fragmented this look on a couple in a situation of transition seems, in such moments one can sense the whole weight of human lives.

Kind Hearts is has not only to do with the art of documentary filmmaking between closeness and discretion but it has also to do with the places and the time and also with a certain point in history in which these individuals are imbedded. The parks, the library, restaurants and especially the room under the roof top where Lucas and Billie are learning have a strong presence in my memory of this film, as strong as the powerful opening. In retrospect the whole film seems like a kaleidoscope.

As I enjoyed this film already while watching it, some hours later when I recall it, it even appears more beautiful and rich and it is hard to believe that the film is less than 90 minutes long. Cinema is not always only about what it reveals, sometimes it is also about options, potentials. Kind Hearts by Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes seems to lead after the watching a life on its own, an echo which can be left on you after watching a film by Yasujiro Ozu or Eric Rohmer.

If there is any doubt that documentaries can be a great cinematic experience on the big screen films like for example Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse (Mr. Bachmann and his class, Maria Speth)) and this amazing film Kind Hearts suspend this doubt for good.

Rüdiger Tomczak

Screenings:

Fri, 18.02, Cubix 8, 17.00