Le Gamin au vélo

Before my review of Le Gamin au vélo I would like to say a couple of things as today is the first post-DV day:

- the current look of the Avenue is not permanent, but its theme with “Random Posts” mentally forces me to add tags and categories to all the previous posts. That’s 340 posts and quite a work of labour. All the categories were lost during the transfer to the new place, so this may take some time before all it back to normal.

- two new blogs have been added to the sites you might like to take a look at: they’re Noir of the Week and Where Danger Lives, two blogs with a noir theme. Hard to go wrong there.

- At this point, the Avenue will update every time the day ends on 5 or 0. This will definitely be true for August and will help me to put some time into the Behind The Scenes work such as the retagging etc. Updates should appear on a more regular basis soon, at which point I’ll be more than happy to announce this.

Is that about it? Yes? Well, time for the review of the latest Dardenne movie. Even though Belgium is in a crisis (on the day this review is published, the country celebrates its 413th day without a government), the country never seems to look as bleak as the days in the lives of the Dardenne characters. Thomas Doret is Cyril, the boy on the bike from the film’s title: a young lad who spends his days in a home. Despite Cyril’s complete refusal to accept the truth, his father has moved to another place and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Cyril is adamant his father wouldn’t leave without bringing Cyril’s bike to the care centre: he skips school to go and look for his father, but the apartment is empty and Cyril is about to be sent back to the care centre… had I already mentioned Cyril is stubborn? Mentally unable to accept the truth, Cyril runs into the doctor’s waiting room, on the ground floor of the apartment block and accidently knocks down a woman. He clings to her as if she was his last straw of hope. She, a young hairdresser (Cécile de France, who’s more Belgian than her name suggests), falls for his despair, finds the boy’s bike and even wants to take care of Cyril during weekends.
This being a Dardenne feature, things can’t remain that positive. Before too long, a local thug and dealer fakes empathy for Cyril and tries to lure him into the world of crime. At the same time, Cyril and hairdresser Samantha track down Cyril’s father, who can’t face telling Cyril he doesn’t want to see him anymore. Surely you weren’t expecting a comedy from the Dardenne brothers?

La Vie Post-DV

As my fellow DV writer Nekoneko put it: “the end of an era”. Delirium Vault is ceasing to be. Us writers were informed a couple of weeks ago, allowing us time to transfer our blog posts to a new address. This is mine. The links to the others can be found in my links section.

I used to maintain this blog for posts about my writing life, but I’ll move those elsewhere. The Avenue has moved here – odd really, moving a street, but there you go. Posts will appear on a regular basis again as of early August. There’s one more planned for July.
The course book I was asked to write has taken up all of my free time these past months, but my first draft had to be finished by 22 July… and I managed to save the final chapter on 22 July at 11.29pm.

Now who doesn’t like a deadline, eh?