Belleville baby (2013)

Lo-fi images, a voice that tells a bitter-sweet tale about love and abandonment, haunting piano music. Belleville Baby, directed by Mia Engberg, mixes documentary & fiction in a seamless, lyrical way. The "I" of the story recounts her memories of Paris and a love affair she had with a drug dealer. They lived in a cramped apartment. It did not last. Where is he now? Engberg's film is a successful encounter between spoken narrative and dreamy images. It's a moving collage that not only explores a personal story. The "I" talks about her artistic striving. She talks about class. Belleville baby is personal without shrinking into the merely individual. In a scene replete with hurt and longing, the "I" talks to her former boyfriend, a person with whom she has not for many years, on the phone. Their conversation - we never see them, just hear their voices - contains level of fiction, even mythological elements, but the film conjures up a fragile kind of intimacy. Everything does not work here. Some of the attempts to make the film "political" seem a bit strained, lacking in real focus. But Engberg has a good way of telling a story using sound & image in an association-based way.