Le Bal masqué

Late one night a couple is brutally murdered at a gas station. The murderers rob the gas station ina way to make the victi ms look like disposed eye-witnesses to an ordinary crime. The police officers Daerden and Siccard suspect that something bigger is hidden behind the robbery and murder. A peculiar investigation starts.
This political thriller from Belgium is based on real incidents from the 1980's, when a criminal gang, in the press referred to as the N ivelle-gang, robbed a couple of big stores. At the robberies a great amount of incident people were killed without reason.
Le bal masque is a very stylized film with refined esthetics and a reflective imagery, a complete opposite to the cliches of the drama documentary such
as shaky handheld camera and pseudoimprovisations. Julien Vrebos has worked on the esthetics of each scene down to the last detail: for instance each character has its own colour and the score comments what is happening in a seductive way. Vrebos claims that the strongest way to face fear and terror is through beauty, but here beauty is not synonymous with relaxed pleasure and easy to understand
simplicities. With extreme close-ups, the director places the spectator in the centre of the action, so that it is impossible to overlook and analyze the whole picture.
I n between the intensive series of extreme close-ups, there are long, still takes that give ti me for thought.
The fi I m does not on Iy focus on these brutal crimes and the investigation of the police, but it widens its perspective and reflects overthe fascism that is hidden in our European democracies, often behind the respectable facade of the bourgeoisie. Democracies, whose leaders cleanse their conscience by blaming a few chosen sinners, but avoid digging deeper and finding out who the true principal was. Who put the gun in the hand of the killer?
NICOLAS DEBOT & SOFIE DAHLSTEDT

Premiärstatus
Internationell premiär: Medverkande
Peter Van den Begin,Alexandra Vandernoot,Natascha Amal: Producent
Stef Cockmartin: Manus
Mark De Wit: Foto
Marij Van Kets, Tony Malamatenios: Musik
Bert Joris: Talat språk
Dutch, French