It’s a rare film that doesn’t just depict an emotional state but becomes the state. Such a film is the quietly devastating Julie Keeps Quiet.
Start with the poster. The title is intriguing enough, simple and direct. White type over a photo of a figure on a blue background. The photo is a contradiction: a young woman, her features twisted in anguish and rage. If a poster could talk, this one would be screaming.
This simple image captures the restraint of its protagonist, Julie, an up-and-coming tennis star in a Belgian high school. She’s headed for the nationals. Julie is a person of action, and she’s uncommonly reticent since the suicide of her friend and teammate Aline. Julie watches a video of Aline extolling the virtues of Jeremy, their coach. Aline looks bright and hopeful, not like anyone who’s carrying a weight. But she does.
And so does Julie. She has a secret, has internalized it and tries to subdue it. She goes about her mundane day. She goes to practice. She walks her dog. She eats dinner with her supportive parents and tries very hard to keep a lid on her emotions. Regret, desire, loyalty, betrayal…all are balled up inside her. She is young enough to feel but not old enough to process. The only sign of her turmoil is the ferocity of her serve: that hard twack is Julie’s release.
If you think you know Julie’s secret—we’re looking at you, Larry Nasser—you’d be right. But that isn’t the film’s revelation. It’s its state of mind. Belgian director Leonardo van Dijl’s penetrating study delves deep into Julie’s private purgatory: the film’s color palette is earth tones and light is always caught at a midpoint: no sunshine or dark shadows. Julie sees her world as if looking through a dirty windshield, grayed, smudges that blend with other smudges.
That isn’t to say it’s dull by any means. Julie Keeps Quiet is immersive, masterfully composed of empty spaces by Mr. Dijl and director of photography Nicolas Karakatsanis. For two hours, they put us in Julie’s headspace, her indecision, the guilt, and the confusion. (The film was chosen as the Belgian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.)
As Julie, actor Tessa van Den Broeck is astonishing. She was chosen from a host of young tennis players and projects serious depth even when still. The camera is right up on her, in extreme closeups of her face, while she stares into nothing. Her teammates suspect but Julie won’t confirm. Her conundrum is not so much Aline’s death as it is her similar circumstances with their coach, Jeremy. He’s been suspended yet still calls Julie, and meets with her, sussing out her version. Will she testify against him? If not for Aline, for herself? They speak in codes, in person or on the phone. “When you told me to stop, I stopped,” he pleads cryptically.
So much at stake for so young a woman. The finals, her team, her sanity, all get mulched together. The images grow grainier. And then the voices in her head: Caroline Snow’s score has the force of an epiphany. Try as Julie does to quell her thoughts, they break through when she least expects them: the rising voices of women, a choir of angry angels that rises as Julie’s path becomes clear. Those voices are a thrilling complement to what we’re watching.
Julie Keeps Quiet is deceptively simple. Not much happens but the everyday, but that’s the point. Julie tries to maintain order. What will break through and what will it mean? The film is an intense and cohesive vision, and a risky one: when you say nothing, the impression is that you have nothing to say. Julie Keeps Quiet, but for its silence, is screaming out loud.
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Julie Keeps Quiet. Directed by Leonardo van Dijl. 2024. Belgian with English subtitles. From Film Movement. Runtime 100 minutes. In theaters.