North Sea Texas (2011)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

You know you are in for a sensitive, perhaps even hyper-sensitive, treatment of homosexuality from the start. A young boy of maybe 10 or so, Pim, dresses up as a beauty queen, naked all but for a sash, his mother's jewelry and perfume. His single mother, who likes men, maybe a bit too much, and to hang out in the local bar, Texas, doesn't scold him nor do the friendly neighbours he spends so much time with. It is clear they, like us, can see the man the boy will become.When we next see Pim he's just turned 15 and is infatuated with the neighbour's 18 year old son, Gino, and we know his future is already mapped out. The only thing is will director Bavo Defurne give us a picture of suicidal teenage angst or something more along the lines of "Beautiful Thing"? Well, let's just say there are plenty of bumps along the way in his film "North Sea, Texas".In this country, of course, such stories of gay teenage sexuality would be virtually taboo where almost any depiction of sex in which either of the parties involved is under the age of consent is considered child abuse but those pesky foreigners have always lead the way in matters of the flesh, (remember Louis Malle's "Les Amants"?). Here, we might describe this film as brave, even daring, but it's probably quite commonplace in its native Belgium.All the performances are good with Jelle Florizoone and Mathias Vergels as the teenage lovers, Pim and Gino respectively, slipping into their roles with remarkable ease while Nina Marie Kortekaas as Gino's younger sister, who has more than a crush on Pim, is also excellent. Only the most prurient of minds could take offence at this most bitter-sweet of teenage romances.

Belgian/Flemish films are not shown too often, but it is always interesting to broaden mental outlook and obtain information about different cultures and approaches. Noordzee, Texas includes multiple topics uncommon in most films: gay coming of age, life in the middle of nowhere governed by winds, dunes and tides, irresponsible way of living in a closed community, for example. Life is monotonous, with any arrival or departure creating an event, but children grow and adults exist, and all this may have unexpected solutions and perspectives. Performances are good, realistic (particularly Jelle Florizoone as Pim, Eva Van Der Gucht (as Yvette, Nina Marie Kortekaas as Sabrina), but due to the complexity and versatility of elements, the plot is not seamless, the balance between slow and fast scenes is odd sometimes. Anyway, strong 7 points from me, with a recommendation to watch - unless you are conservative or homophobic.

Director Bavo Defurne has had a pretty successful career in writing, directing, and producing short films with the kind of active cinematography and intimacy his first feature film North Sea Texas has. Defurne's deep, often unblinking look at his subjects provide us with a truly stark look at their life, and by the end, even if the short was just ten or fifteen minutes long, we achieved an understanding with his characters and his motives became clear. Of course I'm talking about "Campfire," the short he's most regarded for. And let me say, North Sea Texas is no "Campfire." The story concerns a fourteen-year-old named Pim (Jelle Florizoone), who lives in the West Flemish area of France, circa 1970. His father is no longer alive, so his mother Yvette (Eva Van der Gucht) always seems to be in some sort of relationship. A neglected and unnoticed Pim begins to develop feelings for his seventeen-year-old neighbor, Gino (Mathias Vergels), which quickly turn sexual in the wake of Gino moving away with his girlfriend. It just so happens that Pim leaves his mother to live with other relatives and be closer with Gino and his ultimate goal is to try and make their star-crossed relationship work in the long run.Coming-out cinema is beginning to grind not only its own gears together, making for many awkward, too little too late films, but my own personal ones too. Just having gay characters and a gay love story doesn't make a film edgy, exciting, or visceral on its own merits. There needs to be more human interest in the story and, unfortunately, this is greatly lacking here. For starters, there are too many characters. There's no real reason why the mother needed to have a boyfriend in the first place and there's no true reason why Pim had to go live with his relatives anyway. The film could've easily shown him as a neglected boy just because his mother and him were growing distant with each other.Second, the film inhabits the increasingly tedious style of "less-is-more," minimalist filmmaking, which, for this type of story, simply does not work here. It's distracting and makes the film appear inherently vapid of content and story. There are too many scenes of extended periods of silence and too little scenes enriching us with these characters. Long silences can work in film if we're given something to contemplate during the time of the silence. All we're given is a very fragile, loose gay relationship between two young boys, and because of the lack of development we haven't become invested enough to truly care or even worried that something may not work out.But it appears I'm being too hard on a film, whose good intentions are noticeable and somewhat credible. Jelle Florizoone is a fine, subtle screen presence, excelling at a role that is certainly brave for his age, and likewise for Mathias Vergels, whose older character has even a little more to thing about than his lover. Quite possibly the most electric scenes in North Sea Texas are when Pim and Gino are confronting their repressed sexual tendencies in a tent in the woods, which involve many intimate sequences and alive emotion. These scenes alone make the film hard to dislike in many ways.Yet the problems in North Sea Texas are a bit too big to ignore. There's careful directing, beautiful cinematography (if we're comparing it to other works of queer cinema, it's about half as good as the kind we see in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain), and bold performances, but there's also methodical writing, too many characters, slow progression, and an achingly minimalist style present. All I can hope is that one day, the youth of France get a gay movie that could very well represent their culture in a more intricate, sophisticated way.Starring: Jelle Florizoone, Mathias Vergels, Eva van der Gucht, Katelijne Damen, and Noor Ben Taouet. Directed by: Bavo Defurne.

This film is about a quiet and introverted young boy in Northern Belgium, who falls in love with the boy next door."North Sea, Texas" is a slow moving film, but it captures your attention by its great story telling. The story has little dialog, but a lot is told between the lines. Every action and every facial expression tells more than a thousand words. For example, the film tells viewers that the town is underprivileged by minor details such as Gino's mother pouring sugar sachets into a jar, and Pim's mother wearing the same dress almost every time she goes out. Towards the ending, there are scenes open to interpretation, leaving viewers to discuss what really happens."North Sea, Texas" is more of a film to feel and empathise. It is well made, and will touch your heart.