Lonely Belgians struggle to find human warmth on a bleak semiindustrial landscape in actor-turned-helmer Bouli Lanners’ impressive feature debut Ultranova. Pale, sad-eyed Dimitri (Vincent Lecuyer) lives in a scruffy ’60s housing project, but has a steady job selling furnished starter homes in a development that recalls the soggy, suburban tract-house hell in Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster. His imaginative neighbour Jeanne (Marie du Bled), who works in a local warehouse, explains to her best friend Cathy (Helene De Reymaeker) that he’s an orphan who lost his family at age 12, a rumor Dimitri neither confirms nor denies. Lanners’ fat-free script sneaks up sideways on its big theme, the sense of powerlessness felt by those in dead-end jobs, prey to the forces of fate.
Leslie Felperin