Beautiful Men

***1/2

Reviewed by: Jennie Kermode

Beautiful Men
"Selfishness, shame and a fear of connection are underscored by affection. The result is uncomfortable and sometimes very funny."

Here in the UK, around half of all men experience some noticeable hair loss by the time they reach middle age. For a third, it sets in by the age of 30. Generally speaking, there’s a good bit of public sympathy for women facing the same problem, yet men are expected to toughen up and deal with it, and may even find themselves mocked for it, though they too struggle with the idea that they’re losing their attractiveness, and with loss of confidence. Nicolas Keppens’ Oscar-nominated short animation tells the story of three Belgian brothers who have decided to do something about it by travelling to Istanbul to get hair transplants.

The trip does not go as planned, with Bart (Peter Van den Begin), Koen (Peter De Graf) and Steven (Tom Dewispelaere) forced to share a hotel room after it emerges that there was a problem with their booking. A still more difficult situation may lie ahead. In uncomfortable proximity to one another, the men struggle to hide their insecurities. Keppens astutely picks up on little details of their environment, exploring uncertainty and disappointment, whilst identifying the different issues they’re wrestling with and how they relate to one another. Selfishness, shame and a fear of connection are underscored by affection. The result is uncomfortable and sometimes very funny.

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Keeping speech to a minimum, the film advances its narrative through a carefully constructed soundscape and score. There’s a numbness about the characters, withdrawn into themselves as they are, which finds a visual parallel in the fog that envelops the city and gradually finds its way inside the hotel. In turn, the thick blurriness of this enhances the textures of the carefully chosen fabrics used in the construction of costumes and sets. The stop-motion puppets themselves are simply styled but capture a range of melancholic expressions.

Capable of accessing a depth of emotion and subtext even at its most ridiculous, Beautiful Men is a sharp and yet sensitive take on the damage done by conventional masculinity. Its simply structured narrative makes it easy to get into but there’s a good deal more hiding in the fog.

Reviewed on: 25 Jan 2025
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Beautiful Men packshot
Three balding brothers travel to Istanbul to get a hair transplant. Stuck with each other in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.

Director: Nicolas Keppens, Angelo Tijssens

Year: 2023

Runtime: 18 minutes

Country: France, Belgium, Netherlands

Festivals:

GSFF 2024

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