La cinquième saison (2012) User Reviews

We The Ostriches

[JSL26 · 8/10 · 15 June 2017]

This is an intriguing and sobering cautionary tale. JvH48 comments at the end of his/her review, "A small point is that I could not understand the higher purpose of the ostriches that appear at the end of the film."

I think they are meant to symbolize that the kind of scenario depicted in this film will be all too likely if mankind does not take its (collective) head "out of the sand" with respect to our treatment of our only ecosystem.

The end of the world done as an art-house film

[JPfanatic93 · 7/10 · 23 September 2013]

A poetic European look at Apocalyptic cinema, this film deals with a small rural community which is confronted with the sudden emergence of a new season. Nihilistic in nature, it falls between winter and spring and is basically a season of nothingness: there's no snow or rain, but nature stays dead as nothing grows, except for the desperation of the townspeople as their resources dwindle. Soon people go to ever increasing lengths just to stay alive or to explain this unusual break in seasonal patterns, to shocking results. Young girls prostitute themselves simply for food, while the town's outsider is branded a cause to all the town's dismays, targeted as a human sacrifice and burned alive. Though much more esoteric in tone than regular end-of-the-world dramas, the film proves all as haunting and unsettling as it successfully registers the dark side of man and his unwavering ability for cruelty when faced with inexplicable catastrophe and basic survival. Also explored is mankind's role in this world under the uncompromising rule of the environment (though it is never addressed whether mankind itself is at fault for the creation of this fifth season), which can still play hell with our sense of civilization and kindness when it comes down to creating unsustainable living conditions that make society crumble. The visual imagery the film resorts to is both gritty and raw as the material demands, but at times surprisingly off-beat and confusing. The Apocalypse has truly gone art-house, as La Cinquième Saison proves.

Excellent film outlining mankind's strong dependency on nature, and the side effects when nature does not cooperate

[JvH48 · 10/10 · 21 October 2012]

I saw this film at the Ghent filmfestival 2012 on a Wednesday morning at 10 AM and with nearly all available 230 seats occupied. The fact that the story is located in a small Belgian village, and that the cast is from Belgian origin as well as one of the directors Peter Brosens, may for a small part be the reason for attracting local interest. There are only few non-Belgian people involved, the most notable of which are the American co-director Jessica Woodworth (wife of Peter Brosens), and Dutch composer Michel Schopping. But chauvinism can certainly not be the sole reason for the local interest, due to the track record that this director couple already has built with their earlier films located in Mongolia and Peru, named Khadak and Altiplano respectively. All their films have the relationship between mankind and nature as a common theme, and the one at hand can be seen as completing a trilogy.

The "plot" is very simple and straightforward (but my description does not do the film justice). Other than expected the winter period is not followed by spring. Nature comes to a full stop: bees disappear, cows stop giving milk, and seeds do not sprout. We observe nature crumbling down, very literally demonstrated in a few scenes where we see mighty forest trees falling over.

But it is not only nature that we observe crumbling down. Though the film starts with a ritual burning of Christmas trees thereby showing a vivid and harmonious social life within the village, relationships apparently start deteriorating later on as a side effect of the unusual behavior of mother nature. This is not surprising because of the fact that most people in the village are farmers or have related occupations. Everyone's future depends on products from the land. A logical result is that even relationships within families go downhill. We see some people taking desperate actions, but it all solves nothing.

A special technique employed in this film is the usage of long takes. The camera does not move, and we have all opportunity to silently observe what happens before us. This technique does work very well, and is very appropriate in this case where nature is the main actor in the drama that we see developing.

Each of the long takes tells a story by itself, though not much really happens within each one individually. We get the opportunity to read between the lines, proverbially speaking, and we are given ample time to outguess everyone's motives. It is a captivating way to tell a story, and works out very well, particularly in this context. Many months pass one by one, and we see everyone's survival strategies from very close. It succeeds in getting us involved in the world these people live in, yet we'll fail probably to fully understand them.

Of course, while looking for the cause of a natural disaster, a scapegoat is always nearby. This time it is a man living in a trailer, together with his handicapped son, to become a logical target. Though visibly integrated within the village's social life as we see in the beginning of the film, he and his son remain outsiders. Eventually, they take it out on him and his caravan. This was bound to happen, being the way these things work within the confines of an isolated village. The only aspect that surprised me was that the villagers waited that long to take action.

I almost forgot that most of the acting is done by local people, all of them non-professional actors living in the neighborhood. We see their worn faces from very close, and only that reminds us who they really are. They behave very naturally, even when the camera closes in on them.

All in all, this film impressed me very much and left much food for thought. A small point is that I could not understand the higher purpose of the ostriches that appear at the end of the film. But simultaneously hearing the opening score of the Johannes Passion by J S Bach made me overlook this incomprehension, deciding it to be probably my fault. I could not do other than scoring a maximum 5 for the audience award when leaving the theater.

ten stars!!!

[aleXandrugota · 10/10 · 26 August 2019]

Undoubtedly one of the best films of the new decade unjustly left in obscurity. Is one of the greatest movies in my collection. It is very difficult for me to place this film anywhere. Certainly surrealistic, very inspired by the culture of the place (in some frames you can easily recognize both Bruegel the Elder and James Ensor, looking at him you can have flash-backs that take you either to Tarkovski or Fellini, to Paul Delvaux or Jodorowsky). The film brings up a theme as old as humanity, the need for human sacrifice when Nature goes crazy. We don't know (and we don't need to know too much) for what causes life stops in that Walloon village. We learn from the film that the situation is much more geographically extended and the noises of (military?!) planes lead to an apocalypse. For the authors of the film, however, the theme is metaphysical and transcends that relatively precise moment in space and time. The almost generic reaction of communities faced with an apocalyptic evil. It is a ancestral, grotesque and violent reaction of public exorcism. To find a culprit, anyone, preferably as weird and unintegrated as possible. The witch hunt is here more than ever. And always will be because humanity needs explanations but also quick solutions. The rather cryptic ending suggests that the sacrifice was pointless, that mankind's time has stopped for good and that it is the turn of other living things to enter the frame. An understated dramatic metaphor film, a very well made film in every respect and ending as it should. So many more questions remain that we could answer but don't want to.

the human way of dealing with things is wrong

[thewindinthewillows · 10/10 · 2 June 2013]

Independent, low budget, somewhat arty ecologist drama, reminiscent of Shyamalan's movies - although this technically describes it, the movie manages to get far beyond this description and stand autonomously as a novel and remarkable tale. "La cinquième saison" is not just a story about man and nature, but about human nature. I found its message reminiscent of Asghar Farghadi's films: . While the Iranian director's movies proposed a feminine, compromising approach as opposed to the aggressive, destructive masculine one, in Woodworth's and Brosens's film the human way (as opposed to some natural or divine way - but nature or providence are silent in this movie, this is the problem, in fact) of behaving is shown to have disastrous consequences: our most normal reactions - parsimony turning to avarice and selfishness, frustration turning to retribution and revenge, lack of solutions turning to lack of understanding of the world we are living in. A philosophical explanation not only of the environmental or economic problems we might be facing nowadays, but of the all-time human problems we've been creating to ourselves and our world throughout the history of mankind.

not comfortable

[Vincentiu · 26 March 2014]

at first sigh,a poem. influences from Camus, Tarkovski,Ionesco, Paradjanov. in fact, a great film .first for its simplicity. than - for the levels of stories. a crisis. its ambiguous roots. the bitter fruits. and solutions. a movie like a warning. in fact, only testimony. about the escape from a strange form of reality. its basic virtue - to remember. the ancient Greek tragedy silhouettes. the literature of crisis - La Peste and Rhinoceros first. and the deep manner to translate fear and hope. in the air of precise music.the performance seems be only a sketch. the beauty of image - basic clue. a film of silence and reflection. and example of wise use of symbols.

An interesting film, but concerns about animal welfare

[euroGary · 5/10 · 9 August 2013]

'The Fifth Season' is an intensely arty film that follows a year in the life of a Belgian village when it is struck by a strange malady: cows stop giving milk, cultivated seeds stop sprouting, bees stop making honey, etc. Given the size of some of the villagers they're clearly not starving, but predictably enough fingers of suspicion soon start pointing and it all gets a bit 'Wicker Man' in the end. I wouldn't want to sit through it again, but it was undoubtedly interesting to watch once. I only hope, though, that the fish seen suffocating on a river bank, and the freshly-decapitated chicken on a kitchen table, were used for food afterwards and not simply abused for the film: art alone is not worth that kind of suffering.

beautiful

[Kirpianuscus · 2 September 2017]

for its message. for its cultural references. for the music. and for the way to transform a warning in pure poetry. a poetry of disillusion, surviving and fear. a poem of resignation. and good chance to admire the essence of near reality. nothing new. all - well known. and with the status of revelation. a film about life. and about a challenge who , for long time, was discovered as shadow. this is all. and, sure, the scenes as return to Tarkovsky. or Camus.