IFFK 2024: ‘Young Hearts’, a heart-warming teenage gay romance

A scene from Young Hearts.

Sometimes, the most gentle turns in a film can create a considerable emotional impact on the viewer. The filmmaker need not necessarily move a mountain to achieve that. Belgian filmmaker Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts, with its fresh take on teenage gay romance, is filled with several such moments that flow organically one after the other. Being screened in the World Cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), this rather small film about young people has gained appreciation amid a flurry of bigger films boasting wider festival play.

Fourteen-year-old Elias (Lou Goossens) has a rather content life with a father who is something of a local celebrity with his hit pop single, an understanding mother and a grandfather who lives in a farm acting as a guiding light for him. Things are also going good with his girlfriend Valerie. Into this ideal setting comes Alexander (Marius De Saeger), Elias’s new neighbour, who becomes a part of Elias’s gang and soon an inseparable friend for Elias.

Their first conversation that they have is incidentally about love. While Elias is unsure about his romance with Valerie, on whether she can be called his first love, Alexander speaks in a matter of fact manner about the relationship he had with a guy in Brussels. For a moment, Elias, unaware of the existence of such relationships in the rural setting that he lives in, is taken aback, but it also sets him thinking. The conversation becomes a possible spark in him discovering his orientation.

But despite this seemingly weighty issue at its centre, the film on its surface is as calm as the idyllic rural landscape in which much of the film plays out. The screenwriter skirts around bruising conflicts, making it relatively trouble-free for the two young people to ease into the relationship. Elias’s self-doubts and confusions, especially about his own orientation and acceptance within the family and the wider community, are probably the only points of conflict. The family and friends all seem too eager to accept and celebrate his choices, which is the only part that came across as a little too convenient in the end. As much as the LGBT drama at its heart, the film is also a heartwarming chronicle of fun-filled childhood in the countryside, with exciting adventures in abandoned villas, in the grandfather’s farm and the inevitable swim in the river that flows through the neighbourhood, with all of the moments accentuated with a tender piano-filled soundtrack. The two also encounter their share of bullying too, with the timid Elias and confident Alexander responding to it in contrasting ways. Elias’s angst towards his self-absorbed father, who ensures that every dinner table conversation is about his songs, comes as another interesting side track.

The way some of the conflict is resolved might seem too simplistic, but the film is elevated a few notches by Lou Goossens’s performance as Elias. Goossens brings a certain profoundness to a few of the moments with the range of emotions that play across his face, way beyond what one would expect from someone of his age. Young Hearts becomes something more than a generic film on teenage romance, partly thanks to the performances too.