Vitrival – first-look review

The spirit of David Lynch lives on in this Chablis-dry survey of parochial Belgian life from Noëlle Bastin and Baptiste Bogaert, playing in the Tiger Competition at the 2025 Rotterdam International Festival. It presents the cheerful, law-abiding, largely-peaceable folks of the sleepy burg of Vitrival, but at a moment where some festering nastiness is starting to bubble to the surface.

We view the languorous days from the disarmingly reasonable perspective of beat cop duo Pierre (Pierre Bastin) and Benjamin (Benjamin Lambilotte). The pair roll around country lanes in their dinky patrol car, tooting and waving to the locals, their napkins tucked into their bullet-proof vests while they nibble on packed lunches, and just generally not achieving anything even close to results when it comes to the demands of the job. All day, they blast the soothing sounds of local DJ Jean-Francois who sits at his control deck stroking an old hound-dog with his foot.

During the six months that the film covers, Pierre and Benjamin have two main matters to investigate: the first is a rash of penis graffiti that is cropping up in random spots all over town; the second is the fact that a lot of people are taking their own life for reasons that no-one can quite discern. Both are linked in that, with the scant resources on hand, there is no real way to stop them from happening. And nothing can really be done about them aside from having someone clean up the mess so everyone else can quietly move on.

Nothing much happens beyond that, and each new event/discovery is bookended with a little insight into Pierre and Benjamin’s private life, with the former pining for his academic girlfriend who has left for Kansas, and the latter living a slightly paranoiac macho fantasy with his gun collection and an up-lit outdoor hot tub. The directors’ commitment to strict naturalism works in the film’s favour, and they never opt to unduly stress anything strange or surreal through camerawork or music. The general air of smalltown cosiness rings of Twin Peaks via Bruno Dumont, as does the fact that the true nature of this mystery is perhaps intended to go unsolved.

The equally-ineffectual local mayor preaches prevention, and his two cops are asked to pass out mental health literature to anyone who appears abnormal, a comment on how so much government intervention is well-meaning yet ultimately useless. Meanwhile, Pierre’s invalid brother represents the rise of armchair conspiracy theorists in such situations, as he creates a colour-coded chart of the village-folk, denoting who he thinks might be next to go. Of course, after a period of chasing their tails, Pierre and Benjamin start to take his ravings seriously.

The film doesn’t depict any direct violence, and there’s only one small occasion where we see the upshot of a pill-overdose. It’s this restraint and refusal to make its own crackpot theories which makes its treatment of this subject feel so penetrating, melancholy and existentially-inclined. It’s a remarkably confident and polished debut, its characters richly drawn and its portrayal of village life lovingly authentic. A prize, we would hope, is imminent.