(Belgium/France/Luxembourg, 84 min.)
Dir. Bouli Lanners, Writ. Bouli Lanners, Elise Ancion
Starring: Martin Nissen, Zacharie Chasseriaud, Paul Bartel
It’s been a refreshingly youthful year at the European Union
Film Festival in 2013. Not only has the CFI’s programme offered a wide range of
films both about and for audiences of all ages, but the selected films have also
had a decidedly contemporary vibe, as their digital video style pulses with
energy, electro-pop scores. It seems fitting, then, to wind down the festival
with the old school 35mm charm of Belgium’s The
Giants. All the coming-of-age tales at the festival improve upon a
prototype to which this little film seems wholly indebted. The Giants, which tells of three lost boys finding their way by the
river, adds a taste of Huckleberry Finn
(or even The Little Rascals) to the
closing days of the festival.