Some of life’s most memorable, most beautiful moments happen in transition. The universe, fate, destiny, chance, some otherworldly cosmic force … Whatever one believes is setting the course in this life, it has a knack for pulling strings and sowing seeds during periods of change. Unexpected reunions, new friendships, and other promising prospects always have a way of popping up and planting doubt in the mind. Is leaving the right decision? Is quitting really what’s best? Is this move truly the smartest thing? Bas Devos’ latest, Here, explores this phenomenon to its fullest, most wistful extent.
Stefan (Stefan Gota) just wants to empty out his fridge before he goes back to Romania. Left with more vegetables than any one man could ever consume before they spoil, he decides to do what any astute individual with a big pot would do: make a soup. With his construction gig in Belgium now on pause and his mother awaiting his arrival in his home country, Stefan’s not entirely certain he’ll be coming back to Brussels. So he spends his last days before his departure doling out containers of the veggie broth to his favorite faces around town.
Stefan has more than plenty of the stuff to go around, delivering servings of food to his sister, his friends at the job site, and even the guys at the repair shop working on his old beater. The conversation’s good, the stew’s even better. It’s almost enough to make one wonder if Stefan is feeling at odds with his decision to move home. All the while, doctoral candidate Shuxiu (Liyo Gong) studies mosses in the Belgian woods. Though the two are seemingly unconnected at first, their paths converge in the forest near the auto mechanic. What transpires, though brief, is a meet-cute that looks larger than life under Devos’ signature microscope.
Captured on radiant 16mm film by cinematographer Grimm Vandekerckhove — a deserving holdover from Devos’ previous feature, Ghost Tropic (2019) — Here is the cinematic equivalent of a leisurely walk on a gorgeous day. Stefan’s strolls through the city and ambles through the trees, the sun shining through the concrete and the greenery to bathe it all in an amber glow. Devos manages to make what other filmmakers would call connective tissue — a walk from one locale to the next — feel like a profound, life-affirming experience.
Naturally, this gives way to the organic chemistry of Stefan and Shuxiu’s eventual meeting. If a workaday solo nature walk — container of soup in hand — can feel grand in the world of Here, then the pair’s encounter amid the foliage carries even more weight. Gone are those prescient narrative devices such as foreshadowing or crosscutting. Devos’s understanding of what it feels like to be present is visceral: It’s as though these scenes are taking place now, as if they’re unfolding live.
In an environment of fast-paced narratives, unconvincing romances, and neatly resolved storylines, Devos has crafted something much more true to reality. Here is not concerned with what came before this blip in time, nor is it worried about figuring out what might occur after. It is what it says it is: The here, the current, the actively happening. After all, the concept of “here” is not a destination: It’s the very act of being. What a reminder to stop and smell the roses — or, rather, stop and investigate the mosses — even in the most uncertain or transient of times.
Here screens nightly at 7:30 p.m. on June 28 – 30 at the Webster University Film Series.
