Close Review: Both Tender & Tumultuous In Its Portrayal of Friendship, Grief & Growing Up.

I had been wanting to catch Lukas Dhont’s Close since its release in 2022 but unsurprisingly, I failed to find a screening in any of my local cinemas and thus continued to curse the lack of love for world cinema in mainstream movie theatres.

Luckily, my local arts centre hosted a screening and so I finally settled down to watch young actors Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele in the Belgium drama.

Ever since watching the first trailer, I had imagined that Close was going to make me cry but in the happy kind of cry that one experiences with a good coming-of-age narrative.

I had not anticipated to spend almost the entire hour and forty-five minute runtime violently weeping and trying to blow my nose without notifying the rest of the small audience that I was having an emotional breakdown.

Close is a stunningly poignant and yet understated story of two thirteen year old friends Leo and Remi, whose closeness verges on that between two brothers.

Leo and Remi spend an idyllic summer before they begin secondary school playing in the flower farm that Leo’s parents own and sleeping in the same bed at Remi’s home, where his parents see Leo as a second son.

Leo and Remi are incredibly affectionate with one another, their string-bean limbs often tangled together and their heads resting on the others shoulder, all with the innocence of children yet to be spoiled by social expectations or judgements.

Remi gives the impression that he is the more sensitive of the two young boys, struggling to sleep during those hot summer nights, whispering to Leo that his mind doesn’t stop.

Leo does not hesitate to comfort him in the darkness of Remi’s bedroom, using his imagination and wit to calm him and then coaxing him to sleep with the kind of sweet intimacy held by those who know each other like family.

Cinematographer Frank van den Eeden mirrors this beautifully with his work. Close is filled with intimate shots of the character’s faces, studying the subtle changes in their expressions or the small but significant changes in body language.

The boys special friendship is tested when they begin secondary school, where the other children make silly comments about their sexuality, poking fun at the way they sit so closely or seem to know each other so intimately.

While Remi shrugs these comments off with silence, Leo describes Remi as his brother and becomes agitated by the other children’s accusations.

He begins to purposely distance himself from a distraught Remi, who cannot understand why the other half of him is becoming so cold, but Leo cannot possibly prepare himself for the tragedy that marks the finality of their friendship.

Both young actors who play Remi and Leo are outrageously good in their ability to express emotions that feel both enormous and yet understated in their delivery, giving a honest and raw portrayal of the hormonal minefield that is being a thirteen year old boy.

Dambrine is particularly impressive. His face has the delicate prettiness of youth but he portrays an intensity that is almost alarming.

At one point, Leo breaks his arm during an ice hockey practice and we watch Leo attempt to keep his bubbling rage and sorrow from over-spilling. It is only as his cast is wrapped does Leo let himself silently sob on the doctors table, fat tears dropping heavily from his eyes and down his cheeks.

These raw and tender moments are when Dambrine shines most and he certainly holds his own when working against his adult costars, especially within the penultimate scene between Leo and Remi’s grieving mother, which make up some of the most devastating moments I’ve seen in cinema.

The way that Dhont marries his locations and lighting is so important in setting the tone for each scene and helps to paint the emotional picture of the narratives development.

The scenes of Leon and Remi sharing a bed are filled with the kind of honey coloured light that makes their sweet and special bond only the more golden and rare, lulling us into a false sense of security.

This tender intimacy is then juxtaposed later with scenes of Leo at the ice-rink. The harsh white lighting and the cold and frigid blues all connote the ways in which Leo is isolated from the world around him as he drowns in grief.

Dhont continues this method further by using Leo’s parent’s flower farm to represent the passing of time and the stealing of both Remi and Leos’ childlike innocence.

In one scene, when Leo begins to learn the work involved in farming, we see a large piece of farming equipment move across the flowerbeds and rip the colourful blooms from their soil as Leo watches on solemnly.

The darkness of the once vibrant and painterly flower fields, the wetness of the turned up earth and the way the flowers are so violently ripped from their beds make for a gutting representation of such tragic loss and the brutal way in which none of their lives will ever be the same again.

If you are going to watch Close, which you should, there is no getting around the fact that it is emotionally overwhelming and truly heartbreaking.

That doesn’t make it any less stunning to watch and Dhont’s ability to make a narrative filled with tragedy so beautiful is a marvel.

With such wonderful performances from the small cast, I already find myself thinking of them, wondering how they are coping and whether Leo will forever be haunted by the cruelty of childhood.

I think I might always think of Leo, like a haunting almost, for is there not a part of him that might always remain in those flower fields, else looking through the windows of Remi’s home, frozen in both time and grief.