We
2018 · Directed by Rene Eller
Original language: Dutch
- crime
- drama
- history
The story
During a scorching summer in a Belgian-Dutch border village, eight teenagers play games of discovery to break the listless monotony. They challenge each other and themselves and pretty soon, their sexual curiosity starts to blur the lines between right and wrong. As innocence is crushed in depraved games and sexual exploitation, the teenagers soon turn into ruthless predators.
What it’s like
Sun-bleached summer light over flat fields, dusty village roads and pale, overexposed afternoons, with a heavy, airless stillness that lingers in long unhurried shots. The mood is listless and hot, slowly curdling into unease, with little score and mostly ambient sound: insects, distant voices, the hum of heat. Pacing is slow and watchful, building a steady dread rather than offering release. The emotional register is bleak and clinical, following a group of adolescents whose boredom hardens into cruelty, and the film watches that change without consoling the viewer. Its intensity is severe: sexual content involving minors, sexual exploitation, degrading and depraved acts, and sustained cruelty, with much of the harm shown or implied rather than sensationalised but still hard to sit through. This is not gentle, comforting or suitable as background viewing. It is for viewers who want a disquieting, unflinching study of adolescence, complicity and moral collapse, and who can tolerate its disturbing subject matter.
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