Moscow Belgium

Product Description Ordinary Matty has nothing but three kids to her name. She works at the post office, her husband has run off to the bedroom of one his students. At forty-three life is pretty hopeless. Then she gets in a fender-bender at the grocery story with twenty-nine year old Johnny. After some harsh words, Johnny finds himself enamored with Matty, who finds that she likes being wanted, and decides to take a chance on Johnny. A romance ensues just as the wandering husband comes home. Now Matty finds she is the center of attention. Matty must choose to settle back into the life she was leading or to break into something new and step into the unknown. This heart-felt movie is covered in subtle humor making the story like a well made meal. Review By KENNETH TURAN, Times Film Critic|February 20, 2009 "Moscow, Belgium" is as wonderfully contradictory as its title. A realistic romantic comedy with considerable raffish charm and a great spirit, it looks at love's struggles with an offbeat but very human eye. That title is not a misprint or an exercise in fantasy geography; it's the name of a neighborhood in the Belgian city of Ghent, where the film is set. An impressive debut for Flemish-speaking director Christophe Van Rompaey, the film deals candidly with where love comes from and where it goes. It's the kind of urban romance that hard-core fellow Belgians the Dardenne brothers might make if they ever did that kind of thing. --LA Times February 20 - 2009 Disappointment and suspicion emanate like perspiration from Matty (Barbara Sarafian), the central character in the Belgian director Christophe van Rompaey s small, serious comedy, Moscow, Belgium. A blond, slightly bedraggled 41-year-old mother of three (think of Frances McDormand with Joni Mitchell hair), Matty works in a post office and lives in a factorylike housing development in Ledeberg, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Ghent. Matty s somewhat younger husband, Werner (Johan Heldenbergh), who teaches art, left her several months earlier to live with a 22-year-old student, and Matty is still smarting. In her tense encounters with Werner, she refers to his midlife crisis with bitter sarcasm. Although their marriage hasn t officially ended, Matty behaves as if she is already resigned to living the rest of her life without a man. As the movie follows her around, it is very specific about