Liyo Gong and Stefan Gota in Here

HERE
Directed by Bas Devos
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆☆

A SHORT and slow-burner of a film, Bas Devos’s Here uses a rootless émigré as a vehicle to consider the importance of human interactions and connections. He asks a fundamental question about where home can be found – and answers by saying no matter where you are, you cannot escape yourself, so environment does not shape mood. You can be happy or unhappy, no matter what spot of land is beneath your feet.

Stefan (Stefan Gota) has settled in Brussels, working on a building site. With a four-week break to take, he faces a choice come the summer. He decides to head back to Romania to visit family – and as he takes his leave of colleagues, reveals he might not return.

Easy-going with no attempts to mollycoddle the story nor its characters, the conversations between Stefan and his workmates are well-formed realism. It is easy to forget this is a work of fiction.

Stefan spends his final days before embarking east on a swan-song for his Belgium adventure.

He tours the city to say goodbye to people and places. Stefan has used the ingredients in his fridge to whip up a soup, which he then sets out to share with those he cares about. He takes meals to his hotel clerk friend Cedric (Cedric Luvuezo) and to his sister Anca (Alina Constantin), who is working nights at a hospital.

A trip to a Chinese restaurant brings about an encounter with ShuXiu (Liyo Gong). She is a botanist working for a PhD with a specialism in moss. Stefan finds her work in the countryside compelling and almost hypnotic. Suddenly Brussels gives him reasons to return.

Stefan’s journey is all about the to and fro – the way humans communicate, how we relate to one another, and how we show empathy.

Yet more civilised gentleness is flagged by construction workers being given a month’s paid holiday. It’s a reminder of how far down a lonely road conditions for workers have staggered in the UK. Stefan’s blank canvas of a character at the start of the film is a red herring. His nerdy dress and quiet ways are usually filmmaker pointers as to what we can expect, as if his odd sartorial choice of shorts is a signal of his eccentricity. Not so here. Instead, this 80-odd minute romance brings a lovelorn melancholy, so thickly laid you chew through it.