The Broke Circle Breakdown is a Belgian musical drama.The non-linear film explores the relationship between Elise and Didier, their love of American bluegrass, and their burgeoning family centered around their daughter Maybelle. The film skips and jumps from past to present back to past, showing Elise and Didier's first meeting, concerts, their accidental pregnancy, their marriage proposal, more concerts, and Maybelle's eventual cancer diagnosis and treatment at age 6. At points visiting the same scene more than once. The fluid nature of the narrative structure allows the film to build and defuse tension quickly without getting bogged down in depressive ruts.
There is an alien, almost bizarre, quality about The Broken Circle Breakdown. The American traditionals sung in perfect English juxtaposed directly after with lilting Flemish is some what jarring and the story itself takes many twists and turns subverting normal "Hollywood" expectations. There is a sweet melancholic authenticity to the film, it is at times heartrending in its realism, and exuberant in its emotional discoveries.
The film is intense, at times overwhelming, but ultimately deeply moving. The ending is disappointing, unharmonious, almost belonging to a different story. But the journey and the questions that are raised are satisfying and reinforce love, faith, and perseverance.
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