Vesterbro by Michael Noer

Cinema continually explores the hazards of intimacy. The principal topic of Vesterbro is to underline the paradox between the need for open-mindedness, of change, and the brick wall of private life. The film is constructed as the diary of Julie, a woman who’s waiting for something. She doesn’t find it at home, in the empty and anonymous streets. Julie and Martin ; friends, lovers, almost like brother and sister, decide to wander around the world - not to discover truth but, in a simple way, to have a purpose, even if it’s a totally meaningless one. Many scenes are filmed like an interview from Julie to herself, compartmentalising her own way of self expression. In the foreground, always Julie or Martin, as if the camera was the only “person” able to transcribe a situation, a sensation, a sexual or metaphysic fear, as if only images were able to find a road to understanding.

Youth could seem to be utterly lost : alcohol and cigarettes describe the blur of their lives in a moralist society. Playing with the framing and the instability of the camera, Michael Noer gives us an almost anthropological point of view, observing these human beings like animals endowed with understanding. Each question, each doubt, each suffering is universal : Julie wants a child when she has an abortion ; Martin wants to go home when he’s in Mexico. The temporal dimension is also blurred by breaks in time : an unawareness of the importance of different stages in life drives Julie and Martin towards a turning point. The tension is in the moving frame, in the discovery of the fragility of love and friendship in a crisis. As a representation of modern introspection, Vesterbro says that young people must search outside of themselves - changing their material and inner spaces through travelling - to find it.

Ariane Beauvillard