First of all, i am a fan of what people call "depressing movies" (i think they are just realistic), because it can help us to see how our society looks like behind the screens. Didden made "Brussels by night" i think to show some problems ran in our "land of milk and honey" since the late sixties. In the early eighties, a working man "nine to five" called "Max", married with children is so sick of the shallowness of his life that he loses his senses and does something horrible. He's just so depressed he kills his family can you believe it ? Apartment in the big city, loneliness even though he is married, everyday the same way of living... After his desperate act our main character walks into the night life of Brussels,what seems to be a depressing world. He walks into people like Alice and Abdel, without a future, but these characters seem to be happy in their own way, and they hang out, get drunk. Throughout the film, little annoyances come up and Max gets really frustrated about the behavior of Abdel. This is not his world and another killing takes place. Great scenery of our capital. Anyway impressive movie it makes you think about our society. I give it an eight, the film is well made with low-budget.

Brussels by Night is a dark powerfull human condition movie which focuses on the travellings of the main male character thru the grey streets of Brussels. A frustrated men in his thirties, early fourties seams to want to escape, especially himself.

In his searchings he encounters with a couple of underclass characters, full of never to be reached dreams.

This movie grabbed me by the throath from the very beginning on, due to the enormous actingperformance of De Beuckelaere and the straight in your face confrontation with the solitude of anonymous citylife.

Brussels by Night, starts with a man, sitting upright in his bed, putting a gun in his mouth. He pulls the trigger but nothing happens. This must be one of the most impressive beginnings of a Belgian movie I've ever seen if you ask me. Immediately you know this will be a dark, dramatic movie.

The movie isn't bad, but it's not as convincing and powerful as I hoped it would be at the beginning. From time to time much interesting isn't happening, making me lose almost all interest in the movie. In fact, all the movie shows is a man wandering around in Brussels, meeting some people, talking, drinking and trying to phone someone... Only at the end you'll fully understand why he acts so strange during the entire story, who he is actually calling and why no-one picks up the phone. What I liked best about the movie is the way it shows Brussels in the eighties. It's a concrete desert, full of desperation and loneliness, where not much is happening...

The images in combination with the melancholic sound track (The only problem for the people who are not from here is that it is sung in French and Dutch, so impossible to understand for the most of you), make sure this movie is rather depressing, which as you'll see fits the subject perfectly. Even though the movie had its moments it wasn't a complete success. I give it a 6/10.