Family gathers to pay their last respects, only to learn that the deceased Christine neglected to share a minor, but important detail – she wants to be buried in the distant place of Wettelen. After the initial shock, the family decide to walk to the burial site, hence the title, “The Weeping Walk”.
Director Dimitri Verhulst opens with a hint of black humour – a hearse goes through a car wash with the casket in the back. It’s an understated bit of touch of black comedy but it nonetheless offers an isight into how Verhulst will take a traditional approach to the film. Verhulst and his cinematographer Menno Mans effectively use the spatial and the faces of their actors as landscapes to open up the film and invite the audience in, but beneath it all, is the trust in the emotional drama of the characters, who are the engine that powers the film.
he word power suggests forceful energy, but Verhulst shows an appreciation for quieter moments of contemplation, and conversation during a seven day walk across the countryside. The prominence of these quieter and conversational moments may be attributable in part to the fact that The Weeping Walk was originally intended to be a novel. We’ll never know how much this influenced the film, but it’s difficult to imagine that the literary form hasn’t steered it to some degree. What we do see is Verhulst’s respect for his characters and the need for us to listen and respect their vulnerability.
The cinematic and literary forms are different, but they do intersect. Watching The Weeping Walk, I couldn’t help but think about literary works like Iris Murdoch’s The Italian Girl, about a man who returns home to attend a funeral, and reacquaints himself with his family, and their mix of personalities and dramas. Or Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, which doesn’t relate as directly, but the reflective nature of its main protagonist connects it in some way to The Weeping Walk. The point is, that while being uniquely different in their forms, the literary and cinema do share a language. Verhulst’s film is a rumination on this.
The Weeping Walk, like Murdoch’s novel is not short on drama. Bas’ (Peter Van Den Begin) marriage to Christine was far from a bed of roses. Christine’s character is expressed by her family, but the impression is that she was fun, affectionate and kind, even a little wild when she’d dance in her underwear after a cocktail. She remains a larger-than-life character, who instigates a dramatic, if not a slightly surreal adventure for her family.
Stories like The Weeping Walk appeal to audiences because it allows us to indulge in one of favourite activities – people watching. Here we watch and listen to the self-reflection, the past grievances that can’t be suppressed and the family secrets that get dragged out of the closet.
At its heart, Verhulst’s debut feature is about vulnerability and how we can make one another smile, laugh, cry, and even when we drive each other to the brink of despair, love can still endure. Verhulst can’t help but give into sentimentality, and while this can often undermine a story, it doesn’t here. The enduring legacy of The Weeping Walk is the intriguing spin on the road movie, with a funeral party’s walk across the countryside is – now that’s imaginative
The Weeping Walk premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. when this piece was originally written. Also showing at Tiff Romania.
