(2024, 84 min)
Country: Belgium
Director: David Lambert
Studio: Dark Star Pictures/ Artemis Prod.
Language: English
SYNOPSIS: Since Thom and Henri met 35 years ago, their love for each other has never faltered. The seemingly perfect life they had built in Brussels started to go awry when Henri retired from being a police officer. Now, Henri’s days seem to stretch endlessly, each one as bland as the next while his feelings for Thom are fading fast.
They drift away from each other a little more each day, to the point that their house has become a battleground. Thom’s love for Henri remains strong though and he is not ready to give up. He will do anything to save his relationship and rekindle their love, even if that means asking Henri for a divorce
REVIEW:
The Belgian filmmaker, David Lambert, explores couples’ relationships and queer love through different styles and genres, but always casting the same bittersweet gaze on the difficulty of loving and being loved. Films about love, with a twist, in other words, and his fourth feature film Turtles is no exception to this rule.
The film begins on the first day of Henri’s retirement. A former police officer, he is leaving the profession he loves to soak up the gentle pace of life at home. The gentle pace but also the boredom, the immeasurable boredom! Yes, Thom, his husband of over 35 years, fusses over him. Yes, Thom cooks him delicious homemade meals, worries about his health and wellbeing, broods over him and showers him with love, but the days are cruelly indistinguishable for Henri, who soon sinks into apathy. In an attempt to fight back against it, he signs himself up to a few dating apps. Still very much in love with his husband, Thom is willing to risk everything to rekindle the fire in their relationship, even if it means asking for a divorce.
Films about divorce practically account for a genre all of their own, especially if we widen the spectrum to include the comedies of remarriage which were the glory of Hollywood cinema in the ‘30s and ‘40s. In fact, Turtles has more in common with this type of comedy than the drama we find in Marriage Story, for example, revealing a particular liking for depicting the small cruelties we’re prepared to indulge in when fighting our corner. What David Lambert is exploring here is how love can come to an end when we reach the difficult milestone of retirement. Loving one another from a distance, when both parties are still working, is one thing. But loving one another up close, when you’re suddenly having to put up with each other 24/7, is an entirely different kettle of fish. Ultimately, these are pretty common issues, but they’re approached from a more subversive angle when we look at the couple in question.
Indeed, David Lambert’s couple who are on the verge of a breakdown and acting out their very own War of the Roses is composed of two men, two actors who have each carved out their own particular niche in the landscape of European social cinema, and whose previous roles have comprised more labourers and family men than jaded spouses whose love has run dry… Which suddenly makes the subject far more significant. Playing the part of Henri is Olivier Gourmet, whom we’re more accustomed to seeing in hard-hitting films of a naturalist bent, while Thom borrows the features of Dave Johns, the unforgettable hero of I, Daniel Blake. But this kind of audacity won’t work for all audiences.
What is undeniable, though, is that through this particular choice of actors and the film’s queer, Brussels-based setting inhabited by the characters, David Lambert is interrogating our outlook on differing masculinities and homosexuality - not within the age of flamboyant youth but over a longer duration, within a relationship which has had the time to lose its spark.
Turtles is produced by Artemis Productions (Belgium) in co-production with Christal Films Productions (Canada), and is sold worldwide by Outplay Films.
--Review By Aurore Engelen, SXSW 2024 (https://cineuropa.org/)
