Image (2014)
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Duration: 90 minuten
Country:
Belgium
Directed by: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
Starst: Gene Bervoets, Monir Aït Hamou and Sanaa Alaoui
IMDb score:
6,4 (1.386)
Releasedate: 5 November 2014
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Actors and actresses
Reviews & comments
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
I was curious about the first film by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Reminiscent in some ways of their later film Black, but fortunately with less romance. What does come back are those Moroccan or immigrant sub-communities in and around Brussels. The law of the fittest and crime is strongly represented.
Subsequently, the media is strongly criticized because the community is targeted or mediatized mainly or even exclusively in the case of negative news. Actual edited images from the news only reinforced that idea. Placing the blame exclusively on the media is rather one-sided. The character of Gene Bervoets also fits in here and is stereotypical, although his character is beautifully performed. Geert Van Rampelberg and Wouter Hendrickx are also always nice actors to see, although their roles were quite limited.
Not a bad debut, but interesting to think about. With a little more depth and nuance, a topper.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Sergio Leone
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- 4461 messages
- 3142 votes
Not good.
Although I did not respect the order, I finally saw all four feature films by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. I find their oeuvre quite mixed, Black was the first film I saw of theirs and I still think it's the best. Except for Bad Boys, they fished from the same thematic pond for their first three films.
In Image, El Arbi and Fallah try to place a one-sided image of immigrant problem neighborhoods in a different light... by showing a one-sided, oversimplified image of the media, and then in a ludicrous way. They're going in a big way there. The film feels very much like a student project, full of hollow characters hopping simplistic from place to place, all quite transparent and cliché. You can see every next scene coming in no time.
The outburst of violence at the end is another successful twist, but that too is quickly turned around by the same criticism of the media again. I really don't need to spare the media, but make a film with better dialogues (that network event...) and a little more depth. This kind of critically intended film fails magnificently when it is made so one-sided, simple and burly. Regrettably.
1.5
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 12190 messages
- 10362 votes
Journalist Eva Hendrickx [Laura Verlinden] is making a documentary about the situation in the neighborhoods in Brussels where North Africans regularly clash with the police. During the shooting, she meets Lahbib Faraji [Nabil Mallat], a charismatic young man with a criminal record who clearly enjoys respect among the young people in the area. Editor-in-chief and presenter Herman Verbeeck [Gène Bervoets] is under great pressure to improve the viewing figures and Eva's nuanced, meticulous approach is therefore jeopardized. El Arbi and Fallah make short work of the way why media contribute to a negative image of immigrants, but is also critical of that part of society of which Lahbib is a part. The strong screenplay gets a bit melodramatic at the end, but this is an impressive feature debut from the men who would go on to make Black and Rebel.
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