Brothers Seth and Zak, 15 and 13 & 3/4 are spending the summer in their deceased grandfather's house, waiting in vain for their mother, who is otherwise busy, and running low on cash. To make some money they decide to rent out the house to a local drug dealer, but things don't go exactly as planned...
While it certainly meanders at times, even lacking dramatic punch, The Giants still stands tall when it needs to.
Nothing too surprising happens, but the Benelux countryside is lushly lensed and there’s an enjoyably melancholic score from Belgian folkster The Bony King Of Nowhere.
It suffers from an implausible and contrived plot, but the charming performances from the teenage leads greatly improve this film.
Bouli Lanners' coming-of-age tale is a lovely drunken roll of a movie, brightly played by its adolescent cast, luxuriating in a Belgian countryside of whispering grass and fairytale forests.
Writer-director Bouli Lanners values patience and the silent drama of the human face, allowing his young cast all the time they need to convey insecurity, boredom, fear and the sudden emergencies of fending for oneself.
Alternating between shocking violence and impish humour, it’s a beguiling little film before an ambiguous ending more likely to exasperate than inspire.
Director and co-writer Bouli Lanners spins a slight tale from their exploits, but it has a melancholic charm amplified by both the dewily lensed landscapes and a tingly soundtrack by the folk musician The Bony King of Nowhere.
Wistful, beautiful-looking but as transient as that land of lost content.
What director (Bouli Lanners) and writers (Lanners and Elise Ancion) serve to remind us of here is that children have that magical power to escape from misery and make the best of it.
Surprisingly this is a rather gentle, sweet film which seems content to ramble around with the kids without an enormous sense of having any particular place to go. Yet if you watch The Giants with no strong sense of urgency it’s quite a beguiling portrait of resilient kidulthood.
A mix of social realism and Huckleberry Finn-style mythmaking.
Bouli Lanners's film steers clear of making this a predictable tale of youths lost in Lord of the Flies territory, instead delivering a nicely ambiguous coming-of-age story that makes one wonder, and care, what happens next.
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow from Friday July 20, 2012, until Thursday July 26, 2012. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Monday August 6, 2012, until Thursday August 9, 2012. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee from Monday August 13, 2012, until Thursday August 16, 2012. More info: www.dca.org.uk
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