France falls for The Misfortunates

Felix van Groeningen’s The Misfortunates (La Merditude des choses) closed its Paris opening weekend with 12,000 admissions. Besides healthy box office earnings, French critics also unanimously praised the film, describing it as a strong "example of Flemish cinema’s revival".

The film shot to 12,000 admissions despite a number of serious obstacles: it was only showing on seven screens, the cast is largely unknown to French audiences, and Dimistri Verhulst’s book on which the film is based hasn’t been published in France. The early success in Paris builds on the film’s successful premiere in Director’s Fortnight in Cannes last year. The film later went on to win prizes at the Hamptons International Film Festival, Cinessonne European Film Festival and the International Film Festival Bratislava.

The French press is enthusiastic, with a review from Thierry Méranger in Les Cahiers du Cinéma stating that “The Misfortunates could well be the lively and perfect educational film that, in the wake of Moscow, Belgium by Christophe Van Rompaey, sounds the international awakening of Flemish cinema.” Le Monde devoted an entire page to the phenomenon, headlined “Pride in Flemish cinema regained.” Isabelle Danel of Première summed up the film with the words, “It makes one think of Jacques Brel’s songs or films by the Dardenne brothers, but we are somewhere totally different, in a greasy universe, disturbing and strange.”

Van Groeningen’s third feature is based on the novel of the same name by Belgian author Dimitri Verhulst and portrays the life of 13-year-old Gunther Strobbe, who shares his grandmother’s run-down house with his father and three uncles. This family of misfits spends their time doing mostly nothing, drinking alcohol and chasing women. In this unfortunate setting, van Groeningen manages to create a tragicomic film that captures the audience.

In Belgium, the film has already registered 425,000 admissions through distributor KFD. The Misfortunates is this year’s official entry for Belgium at the Foreign-language Academy Awards. The film’s Flemish producer is Dirk Impens for Menuet, and its French release is handled by MK2 (which also represents it internationally).