Julie Keeps Quiet
Leonardo Van Dijl’s subtle Belgian drama about sexual abuse is distinguished by a terrific central performance.
Image courtesy of Curzon Film Distributors.
This highly unusual film offers a decidedly interior drama which plays out in a setting which could not be more vividly and authentically realised. The filmmaker is a Belgian, Leonardo Van Dijl, who directs what is his first feature from a screenplay which he wrote with Ruth Becquart who also contributes by taking on a subsidiary acting role. There are achievements in Julie Keeps Quiet which are remarkable in a debut work but, although I tend not to relish films that become over melodramatic, here I find myself feeling that the drama is handled in a way that is too muted to achieve the impact that the piece ought to have.
Julie Keeps Quiet takes place in the world of tennis and is very specifically centred on its leading character the titular teenage schoolgirl who is already something of a prodigy in the sport and has her eye on being taken up by the Belgian Tennis Federation. However, although tennis plays such a strong element in the story, its function here lies in the fact that it is the scene in which a situation arises, one which has become increasingly in the headlines of late. The head coach employed by the school principal, Sophie (Claire Bodson), is suddenly suspended. He is Jérémy (Laurent Caron) and, coincidentally or not, it happens after one of his star players, Aline (Tamara Tricot) has committed suicide for no very clear reason. With her death, Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck) has taken over as his favourite and the bond between them has become close. The unexplained suspension, while leading to gossip as to its cause and to indications of some investigatory proceedings being required, has immediately led to Julie being assigned to a new coach, Backie (Pierre Gervais). But Julie has come to rely on Jérémy whose ideas can differ from Backie’s and her initial reaction is to resent the change.
That is the situation that is set up and it is done in such a way that, while possible sexual abuse is clearly the subject at issue, the viewer can ask what kind of a tale this will become. On the one hand, it could be a study of how somebody who, quite possibly innocent of any such behaviour, is disadvantaged by the suspicions that are aired even though it does not, initially at least, appear to be a case in which there is enough evidence for anything to be clear-cut. However, Sophie and the leading school figures give Julie the impression that they think she will want to speak out once any investigation begins. They take this line because Jérémy's mentorship of Julie has brought her into close observation of his ways and it could well be that they see her as, so to speak, the key witness for the prosecution (the impression they give is that they believe that Aline was his first victim but with no evidence of that existing what Julie might say will be crucial).
However, it is here that the significance of the film’s title becomes apparent. Julie declines to speak out and it could be because she has not been abused by Jérémy. But, equally, her decision could reflect a survivorship technique, a way of putting the abuse behind her. Then again, another factor could be her awareness that to become a leading figure in the matter would distract from her game. That is what means the world to her and it is just then that the next step forward - being taken on by the Belgian Tennis Federation - is becoming a very real probability. These various possibilities co-exist until some thirty-six minutes in when Jérémy says something to Julie which for a moment seems to settle what happened between them. But, once we reflect on his statement, we realise that with it being his excuse, or indeed his version of events, it actually settles nothing.
The potential for a film deal dealing with issues of this kind in a serious and unexploitative way is self-evident, but Van Dijl contrives to play on the uncertainty of what really happened for what comes to seem a long drawn-out 100 minutes. Whatever conclusions we eventually draw still leave us without full details and the conclusion is as underplayed as the rest of the film. The reticence of the piece ultimately limits its dramatic power which is a shame given the triumphant casting of Tessa Van den Broeck in the title role. She had not acted before but is a real tennis player and, even if one is not a tennis expert, one can instinctively relish the skills of the profession which she exudes when portraying Julie whose work both at practice exercises and in actual matches takes up so much of the film’s footage. Furthermore, when it comes to acting skills, Van den Broeck fully lives up to the fact that Julie is literally made the centre of the film’s focus. Often she is seen in shots where the other figures are less precisely in focus than she is, a not-overdone device which makes one identify with her however much we continue to ponder how far things went with Jérémy. Yet it is rather a drawback that rendering her colleagues background figures does reduce their status in the story due to the vagueness with which some of them are presented.
I suspect that anyone familiar with the world of tennis will admire hugely the validity with which it is presented here and it is a setting which enables Van Dijl to illustrate his directorial skills especially by the way in which a sense of inner tension is suggested through sustained camera shots which find Julie hard at her game running in and out of many a static image. In addition, you don't need to care much about tennis to recognise and applaud the triumph of Tessa Van den Broeck. Yet, ultimately and for all its good intentions, I for one was left with the impression of a lengthy work which, due to the extent of its restraint, yielded less of an emotional impact than was needed.
Original title: Julie zwijgt.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Tessa Van den Broeck, Grace Biot, Alyssa Lorette, Claire Bodson, Pierre Gervais, Laurent Caron, Ruth Becquart, Koen De Bouw, Noah Lecloux, Luca de Maar, Qays Jahier, Tommy Buyl, Tamara Tricot.
Dir Leonardo Van Dijl, Pro Gilles Coulier, Gilles De Schryver, Wouter Sap and Roxanne Sarkozi, Screenplay Leonardo Van Dijl and Ruth Becquart, Ph Nicolas Karakatsanis, Art Dir Julien Denis and Warzée Quentin, Ed Bert Jacobs, Music Caroline Shaw, Costumes Ellen Blereau.
De Wereldurede/Les Films du Fleuve/Film i Väst/Hobab/VRT-Curzon Film Distributors.
100 mins. Belgium/Sweden. 2024. US Rel: 28 March 2025. UK Rel: 25 April 2025. Cert. 12A.
