Flanders

Released May 18, 2007

1h 31m

Drama

War

List

66%

Tomatometer

59 Reviews

57%

Audience Score

1,000+ Ratings

Promiscuous farm girl Barbe (Adélaïde Leroux) entertains numerous lovers, but mostly prefers the company of Demester (Samuel Boidin). Demester seems incapable of commitment, and so Barbe sleeps with Blondel (Henri Cretel) out of revenge. Soon after, she sees both lovers off to war. While Barbe discovers she is pregnant, Demester and Blondel experience atrocities on and off the battlefield.

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Critics Consensus

Though Bruno Dumont recycles his typical themes and motifs, Flanders is also just as beautifully shot and convincingly acted as the director's previous movies.

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Ben Kenigsberg

Time Out

Rated: 2/5

Nov 16, 2011

Full Review

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

[A] stilted, affected term-paper treatise on the human condition.

Rated: C-

Oct 7, 2009

Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Dumont is much more confident when he sticks to the title town and the young woman the men left behind; his habit of alternating close shots with extreme long shots and his singularly unsentimental way of showing sex are as distinctive as ever.

Jan 3, 2008

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David Lamble

Bay Area Reporter

This one is definitely not for everybody.

May 21, 2020

Full Review

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

A congealed shrug

Aug 27, 2009

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Self-important film that presumes it has something pertinent to say about the human condition but doesn't.

Rated: C

Feb 3, 2008

Full Review

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Aender S

The plot might be interesting and although I don't mind taciturn characters, the acting is generally bad in this film here.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

04/11/24

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Audience Member

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Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/09/23

Full Review

Audience Member

With its ahistoric settings it could be a period piece of a time just a bit behind our own, or it could be science-fiction of a time a wee bit ahead of our own. Generic clothing, minimal dialogue, no music, out-of-date automobiles, and horses that run alongside tanks. War in an unnamed place being fought over unknown grievances. Don't believe the moronic blurb that describes the movie. Andre isn't the only one with an inability to show affection. Whatever else Flanders is about it is certainly also about the way that circumstances blunt love, compassion, communication, empathy. Whether it's bucolic farmland in France or a desert theatre of war. It's a dry, hard film, one that I think owes a lot to Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (and Kubrick's objectivity in general) and to a lesser degree, but I think unmistakably, to Brian DePalma's Casualties of War.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The war scenes were very powerful, but the rest of the movie is typically French, i.e. pretentious and boring. Watch the war scenes, fast forward through the rest.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Des cris , des gemissement quelques paroles grognees et inintelligibles, c est tout ce que vous donneront les personnages de FLANDRES. Ce film singulier , rebuttant au prime abord, necessite que le spectateur lache prise sur sa propre attente de l histoire et de l image. Considere par certains comme un film sur les horreurs de la guerre, Flandres semble avoir une espece de dimension plus organique qu un festival de violence. La barabarie guerriere et l abandon eprouvee par Barbe sont utilises comme des situatiosn extremes qui contraingnent l homme a reveler ces emotions animales : la peur , le desir sexuel, la survie etc.... Une fois videe de leurs pulsions les corps s oublient, l esprit s eleve.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Bruno Dumont did sth really great, very cold, nihilistic, quiet, slow and emotionally powerfull. So many questions appears while watching, existential questions. Techincal side of the film is not important, Dumont is not a director, he is a philosoprer and the film is just the way of eexpress his thought. Well done, well done...

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

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Bruno Dumont

Director

Adélaïde Leroux

Barbe

Samuel Boidin

Demester

Henri Cretel

Blondel

Jean-Marie Bruveart

Briche

David Poulain

Leclercq

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Synopsis

Promiscuous farm girl Barbe (Adélaïde Leroux) entertains numerous lovers, but mostly prefers the company of Demester (Samuel Boidin). Demester seems incapable of commitment, and so Barbe sleeps with Blondel (Henri Cretel) out of revenge. Soon after, she sees both lovers off to war. While Barbe discovers she is pregnant, Demester and Blondel experience atrocities on and off the battlefield.

Director: Bruno Dumont
Screenwriter: Bruno Dumont
Distributor: International Film Circuit [us]
Genre: Drama, War
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): May 18, 2007, Limited
Release Date (DVD): Nov 6, 2007
Box Office (Gross USA): $22.2K
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Dolby SRD
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)