There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actually, who am I to call the movie as "plotless" once I have no idea of what was the director's purpose. For that reason, I decided to dig up some information about the concept and I came across with an interview where Bas Devos describe the particular style of filmmaking:"I am attracted to something on the border of the narrative—where the story ends, but the image and sound linger. This almost "dangerous" moment, where seemingly nothing happens, but the audience connects to the world as seen or heard by the filmmaker. I suppose that's the moment when the most interesting questions arise."As the movie goes on, you start to realize that there will be no 'big twist' or some abrupt kind of turn on the story and then you go into the mindset of the project, which is focused more in suggestions and innovation than in traditional, for sure.Nonetheless, keep your mind open (all the time).

Violet is the debut feature of the Flemish director Bas Devos.Violet deals, mainly in a visual way, with the grief and guilt feelings of a teenager (Jesse - César De Sutter) who -rather passively- witnesses the violent death of his friend and BMX mate Jonas in a shopping mall.The movie leans heavily on visuals. Even the title Violet is associatively related to violent and to violet, a color at the higher end of the visible spectrum (and also the soundtrack by the black metal band Deafheaven).Dialogues are sparse, and when they take place hardly decipherable. Which I found quite annoying. The acting was moderate.In an interview, Bas Devos said he found it more important how the images affect you than what they exactly show. However, in my case the images hardly had an impact: they were isolated pictures, mere beautiful images, nice long takes of the neighborhood at dawn resp. sunset. Even the excellent and original shots of BMX-rides didn't truly add to the story.Indeed, the Flemish Nicolas Karakatsanis (known from the Drop, the Welp and Rundskop) is an expert in atmospheric cinematography. But only at times the visuals enhanced the story.For instance at the start of the movie, we see shots of a desolated shopping mall (mostly in dead silence) with two groups of boys who will later appear to be the offenders and their victims. We watch them from different angles, even when they meet. Later it becomes clear we are looking at a CCTV footage. Then the footage is re-winded…, the sounds return and we see the mall and the boys -one dead- in "real life".Also the loud "background noises" from birds in the morning, traffic and children's voices added to the alienating effect.Thus in conclusion, a nice debut feature with excellent camera work, but too experimental for the average audience, even art-house fans like me.

I was not prepared for this movie. I didn't know the story and, frankly, from the poster I thought it was about a teenage girl growing up. I'd like to think I went to this movie open minded, not expecting anything.And then it started. And it was slow. And it was made by someone who must love riding bmx bikes. Countless minutes of bmx bike footage. In the woods. In the venue. On the street.Both dialog and acting were, frankly, poor. It seemed like the words and dialects were forced upon the young actors.So I guess the movie was about atmosphere. I can enjoy atmosphere. For about the length of a short movie. For longer features, I need at least a bit of story. A bit of background. A bit of tension.I don't mind slow movies. I do mind movies that don't move at all. And this feature didn't seem to go anywhere.

VioletOften it seems that films, in efforts to delve in the mysterious world of teenage girls, forgets or ignores teenage boys, unless they are lovelorn. But this could be the year of the teenage boy in cinema, with films like Hellion and All This Mayhem focusing on aspects of adolescents other than romance. Violet is probably the most interesting and experimental, and probably my favourite. The opening of the film is a slow tense build up of CCTV footage that concludes with Jesse's witnessing his friends murder. The rest of the film deals with Jesse's grief, avoiding all the cinematic clichés: no angst showers or despairing parents, Violet provides a realistic portrait of Jesse adapting to life now that his friend is gone. With a minimal script Devos is able to build convincing relationships between Jesse and his friends and family, that also provides insight into the various ways grief can affect different people. Jesse's understated characterisation is a central force in the film which allows Devos to create many beautifully composed long takes: winding through suburban streets, zooming in on Jesse in a heavy metal concert crowd and a claustrophobic journey back to the scene of the murder, that build the narrative. Devos then goes ahead and continuously disrupts these scenes with interludes of visual feedback and white noise, that link back to the opening CCTV scenes and provide a strange texture that is entirely captivating. Films like Violet that succeed in character, narrative while maintaining a creative experimental element, are few and far between; and films that portray grief this convincingly are even rarer.