Cannes 2024 (Critics’ Week): Julie Keeps Quiet (by Leonardo Van Dijl) | Review
This expertly made first feature about a promising tennis player who decides to remain silent when her coach falls under investigation is one of the strongest debuts at Cannes this year.
There is no other way to describe Julie Keeps Quiet, which premiered at the 63rd Critics’ Week, as a standout among the Camera d’Or contenders this year. Leonardo Van Dijl’s picture-perfect debut visually epitomizes the heart-wrenching processes of silence and absence. Throughout its nearly 100-minute duration, Dijl stages each scene with such visual inventiveness that it quietly ruminates on a lost soul.
Julie (played by newcomer and talented tennis player Tessa Van den Broeck) is the star player of an elite tennis academy. Like many young and dedicated players, Julie focuses on training, playing, and working out, barely finding time to hang out with her friends who also play at the same club. Julie’s skills and passion bring her to the attention of the Belgian Tennis Federation, but things change at the academy when Coach Jeremy doesn’t show up one day.
We learn that he is suspended and under investigation after Aline, the academy’s star player from a few years ago, who had abandoned tennis and suffered from depression, took her own life. All the players in the club are called to testify. However, Julie, now the star player, remains silent about the case despite her close bond with Head Coach Jeremy.
This is not the first time Belgian director Leonardo Van Dijl has explored the world of sports in his work. His 2020 short film Stéphanie, about a young gymnast, entered the Cannes competition. Now, he returns with a quiet, sobering, and spellbinding psychological journey following a tennis player, with deep layers of silence. Julie Keeps Quiet stands out thanks to Nicolas Karakatsanis’s nuanced and striking cinematography. Muted colors fuse into each scene, delivering a high level of dusky and gloomy atmosphere. Another aspect that really elevates Julie Keeps Quiet is its majestic audio design, which could help the film secure a spot for Best Sound at this year’s European Film Awards. I haven’t experienced such clear and sharp audiovisual work since 2021’s Un Certain Regard entry The Innocents. This is a tremendous and hypnotic debut feature that leaves a lasting emotional impression.
Julie Keeps Quiet (Julie zwijgt) is a co-production between Belgium (De Wereldvrede and Les Films Du Fleuve) and Sweden (Hobab, Paradise is Burning, and Film i Väst), with Poland’s New Europe Film Sales handling world sales. The film has been sold to France’s Jour2Fête for its French release.
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