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.