Ultranova

(Ultranova)
Bouli Lanners / BEL - FRA, 2005
French version / English subtitles, 83 min

Pale, sad-eyed Dimitri lives in a scruffy 1960s 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 neighbor Jeanne, who works in a local warehouse explains to her best friend Cathy that he’s an orphan who lost his family at the age of 12 - a rumour 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.