Coward

A train full of young Belgian soldiers races towards the front. They sing at the top of their voices, crack jokes and egg each other on. Pierre, too, wants nothing more than to prove that he belongs among them. Emmanuel Macchia, making his film debut, plays him with a disarming restraint. But behind the lines, Pierre finds himself in a very different company. Francis (an irresistibly lively Valentin Campagne) gathers a group of misfits there to help the troops escape the war for a while through theatre, singing and homemade costumes. What begins as entertainment slowly opens up a world for Pierre that he never knew existed.

Following the international success of Girl and Close, Lukas Dhont broadens his scope without losing his characteristic sensitivity. The trenches of the First World War provide his most expansive setting to date, but once again he focuses primarily on what happens between young men when expectations of masculinity begin to weigh heavily on them. Macchia and Campagne are each other’s perfect opposites: one quiet and observant, the other extroverted and unpredictable. Dhont allows their bond to emerge rather than be explained — through glances, touches and moments when the war briefly recedes into the background. Their chemistry did not go unnoticed in Cannes either: Macchia and Campagne shared the prestigious Best Actor award there.

For Coward, Dhont, together with co-screenwriter Angelo Tijssens, delved into a rarely depicted aspect of wartime history. The spark came from an old photograph of soldiers on a stage, wearing skirts made of sandbags and jewellery fashioned from discarded ammunition: material intended for destruction that could suddenly create something. That same tension runs through the film. Frank van den Eeden’s camera seeks out the intimacy of bodies and faces, whilst Nora Monsecour imbues the revues with a playful, sensual physicality and Valentin Hadjadj’s music blends with the soldiers’ powerful songs. In this way, Coward looks beyond the familiar images of heroism and violence, towards men who sing, play, yearn and, for a moment, dare to be someone else. For perhaps courage lies not only in going into battle, but also in refusing to be who the world tells you to be.