Hellhole

There is a diffuse loneliness in the images: When a Flemish doctor looks after homeless people or Skypes with his son, a military pilot on a mission. When the Italian Alba (Alba Rohrwacher) interprets a debate in the European Parliament or seeks distraction at night in clubs and sex until her weariness costs her her job. When Medhi, a teenager from an Algerian family, has migraine attacks, suffers from pangs of conscience or sits absent-mindedly at school, where the Belgian capital is described as a "hellhole". All three seem lost, all three live in Brussels - after the terrorist bombings of March 2016, an experience of violence that has left cracks and injuries on the inhabitants of the international city. The camera draws attention to itself by circling, but also photographs apartment interiors as if there were still lifes. Scenes separated by fades to black and only loosely connected leave blank spaces that suggest what remains unsaid and is not shown. (bik)