Bluegrass Band: The Broken Circle Breakdown

A typical bluegrass concert consists of a band, playing songs, and then in between sets, the couple who was singing starts telling stories of their lives, to enhance the realism and emotions the soulful music elicits from the audience. Director Felix Van Groening takes this concept and applies it to his passionate film "The Broken Circle Breakdown," creating a setting and story that make the viewer feel "invigorated and alive" (Puchko). "The Broken Circle Breakdown" follows the relationship of Didier (Johan Heldengergh), a singer and banjo player in a Belgian bluegrass band, and his lover and tattoo-parlor owner, Elise (Veerle Baetens) as they struggle to make sense of their relationship after the tragic death of their daughter. Van Groening

uses classic and new bluegrass-style compositions, exceptional actors, and ingenious editing with flashbacks that create and maintain a feeling of intense intimacy with the audience.
Music is used in “The Broken Circle Breakdown” to heighten existing emotions of hope and heartbreak as the plot progresses. When reviewing “Broken Circle,” Joyce Kulhawik says “the bluegrass score is gorgeous—old and newly written tunes interwoven as musical interludes punctuating the film’s themes” of home, love, and heartbreak that make the viewing all the more emotional. While the film is structured like a bluegrass concert, Elise and Didier’s relationship is expressed as a “bittersweet” bluegrass song; “the movie begins in the middle of Didier and Elise's relationship, then unwinds like a tune circling a recurring refrain, back and forth in time, between present and past, in an ever-widening circumference, deepening our understanding of their inner lives” (Kulhawik).
In the beginning of the film, Didier explains to Elise that to combat the misery of an impoverished existence in the mountains, musicians sang songs. And that, too, is what director Felix Van Groeningen accomplished, "peppering the film with musical interludes of the couple performing onstage with their band" (Merry). The music is strategically placed in the film, marking the powerful events in Didier and Elise's relationship. This is seen most notably in the consecutive scenes where Maybelle's condition can be seen worsening, when Didier and Elise notice she is getting more bruises on her arms and her gums are bleeding. The film then jumps to a scene of Elise singing a solo, "Wayfaring Stranger," a somber folk melody that more than accurately expresses Elise's heartbreak over her daughter. As the final notes ring, the film jumps to a scene in the hospital room, with Elise clutching Maybelle's body and Didier standing, crying, at the end of the bed. The raw emotion in the song is paralleled by the tragic storyline, making the film, as Scott Mike says, "just plain affecting" (Scott).
Throughout the film, music is only present when Didier’s bluegrass band is, and this creates the feeling of anticipation as the audience waits for the major events that will accompany the “rollicking to beautiful to haunting” (Scott) music.

Didier's band of musicians is always hovering, "singing the songs of life,...singing in the void for all they're worth, singing that somehow we will all get through it-unbroken" (Kulhawik). For example, when Elise is given the leathal injection after being pronounced clinically dead, the band stands faithfully by her bedside. In the silence following, Didier tells her goodbye, puts on his banjo, and launches into a suprisingly upbeat melody that seems to be celebrating Elise's "love, loss and--in the end--life, in all its bitter beauty" (Scott). "The Broken Circle Breakdown," like the bluegrass music encircling the story and characters, "has a way of evoking any number of emotions" (Scott) that resonate long after the initial

viewing.
Director Van Groening utilizes the actors' and actresses' exceptional musical and acting talents in "The Broken Circle Breakdown," creating an intimate connection between the audience and the protagonists.

Veerle Baetens, who plays Elise, and Johan Heldenbergh, Didier, "harmonize magnificently onstage and off" (Merry). Van Groening elicits "strikingly visceral, detailed" (Kulhawik) performances from his actors, creating a palpable, profound connection to the audience. For instance, Heldenbergh presents Didier as a man who dreams of the American life, but has a temper; Baetens is a character of effortless sensuality and girlish charms that brings out Didier's softer side. Beatens is first "pure temptation, irresistible in her stars-and-stripes bikini, then a grim-faced mother, absorbing more bad news from her daughter’s physician" (Williams). The two find a connection in their opposite personalities, a characteristic that will ultimately be their downfall as they begin to blame each other for Maybelle's illness and death. Kristy Puchko on "'The Broken Circle Breakdown'" states that Beatens and Heldenbergh "craft a connection that feel authentic, deeply held, and enviable. Every step of the way, these performers are in sync in this complicated dance of love and hate, and it is truly

sensational."
Another major character that’s adds to the feeling of intimacy, Maybelle, is played by a stunning Nell Cattrysse, a little firecracker, the light of her parents' life. Kulhawik also agrees that she has "never seen a more developed, charismatic, and poignant performance by a child this young in a film.” Five year-old Cattrysse's talents are showcased during the many scenes where her illness is beginning to show itself and then, later, when she is staying at the hospital. For instance, the heartbreaking scene in which Maybelle asks Didier about the death of stars, she is exquisite, expressing wonder and no fear for the inevitable. She is equally “authentic in every moment, happy and sad, a fully realized person onscreen” (Kulhawik). These immensely talented actors and actresses’ performances add much to the emotional connection the director creates in the film, guaranteeing “Broken Circle” will affect viewers.
Van Groening also applies the use of flashbacks and flash-forwards to dramatize the story and juxtapose the jubilant and despondent times. Flashbacks occur when a segment of film breaks normal chronological order by shifting directly to time past. The use here is objective, returning to earlier events to show their relationship to the present. Van Groening ingeniously applies the flashbacks in such a way that does not seem erratic or disjointed with no relationship to the present; each flashback or flash-forward is essential to understanding Elise and Didier’s relationship.
Right away the movie begins skipping through time, first from a scene in the hospital where it is learned Maybelle has cancer, to Elise and Didier’s first night together at Didier’s country compound.This flshback is used to counterbalance the extraordinary grief on that day, rewinding “to the moment they were just getting to know eachother and life seemed full of possibilities” (Van Hoeij). And so it goes, flashbacks tracing their evolving relationship through scenes that “invariably cycle back to the sad present” (Dargis).
This contrapuntal narrative establishes how happy the couple was before their daughter’s illness, an event that led to eventual downfall of their relationship. Another instance of flashback is where Maybelle can be seen running through a festival in which Didier’s band is performing “Country in My Genes.” After seeing adorable little Maybelle running around in her red boots and stealing food, the scene cuts to her in the yard in a flower patterned head scarf, clearly going through chemothereapy. The jump in scenes emphasizes that drastic changes that occurred in just a couple of years. The rest of the film continues in a similar fashion, “jumping back and forth in time, from moments of joy to moments of extreme sadness, the contrasts amplifying the intensity of each instant” (Van Hoeij). An instance of flash-forward that enhances the connection with the audience is when the film jumps to Elise unconscious in an amulance, with no notion as to how she got there. What makes this foreshadowing so dramatic is that the audience doesn't know when this event will take place or what events caused it. "Seeing portions of an outcome before we know why…fuels a mysteriousness that keeps the viewer watching” (Merry).
Van Groeningen realized that to understand the present events, one must go back to each individual event in the past that had an influence on that specific scene in the present. “As tricky, and distracting, as that device can be when misused, it is to Van Groeningen’s credit that he never loses the handle on his story. Rather “Broken Circle Breakdown” flows naturally forward, on towards its inevitable end” (Scott). By using flashbacks and shuffling between past and present, the director is able to offer respites from the grief that would be overwhelming if experienced all at once.
Altogether, Van Groeningen 's use of exceptional actors, a heartfelt bluegrass score, and innovative use of flashbacks enhance the emotional journey the audience embarks on, creating an connection that the audience will feel long after the film ends. The film is executed wonderfully, it's a "bold and beautiful film about love and grief that never pulls its punches" (Puchko). "The Broken Circle Breakdown" is not always easy to watch, it is an emotional rollercoaster with twists and turns you don't see coming and that wrenches the viewer's heart out, but "as in life, sometimes there is beauty to be found in the pain" (Puchko).