User reviews

You know you are in for a sensitive, perhaps even hyper-sensitive, treatment of homosexuality from the start. A young boy of maybe 10 or so, Pim, dresses up as a beauty queen, naked all but for a sash, his mother's jewelry and perfume. His single mother, who likes men, maybe a bit too much, and to hang out in the local bar, Texas, doesn't scold him nor do the friendly neighbours he spends so much time with. It is clear they, like us, can see the man the boy will become.

When we next see Pim he's just turned 15 and is infatuated with the neighbour's 18 year old son, Gino, and we know his future is already mapped out. The only thing is will director Bavo Defurne give us a picture of suicidal teenage angst or something more along the lines of "Beautiful Thing"? Well, let's just say there are plenty of bumps along the way in his film "North Sea, Texas".

In this country, of course, such stories of gay teenage sexuality would be virtually taboo where almost any depiction of sex in which either of the parties involved is under the age of consent is considered child abuse but those pesky foreigners have always lead the way in matters of the flesh, (remember Louis Malle's "Les Amants"?). Here, we might describe this film as brave, even daring, but it's probably quite commonplace in its native Belgium.

All the performances are good with Jelle Florizoone and Mathias Vergels as the teenage lovers, Pim and Gino respectively, slipping into their roles with remarkable ease while Nina Marie Kortekaas as Gino's younger sister, who has more than a crush on Pim, is also excellent. Only the most prurient of minds could take offence at this most bitter-sweet of teenage romances.

First read jm10701 review of this movie! This reviewer draws a nice clear picture of the characters and plot in this odd Belgium indie film. At the beginning I was not compelled to watch this movie due to the weird little boy but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did.

Pim (the main character) is so sullen you'll wonder what's to become of him as his mother expresses no parenting skills and the only positive influences in his life seem to be the mother of his friend Gino and Pim's own imagination. So you just might want to follow Pim's story into his adolescence. (He has a catharsis moment alone on the beach in which he transitions into adulthood) There are other reviews here that are more detailed and repeating their praise is pointless.

The photography is wonderful, the mood of desperation is consistent, Pim's mother is a dead ringer for a 'Divine' look-a-like contest, and her boyfriend Etienne is as sleazy as he looks.

If you go looking on netflix you will find there are dozens of gay themed movies. I ended up finding this dutch movie called North Sea Texas. You have a teenage boy named Pim. He has mother who is a singer and accordion player. She spends most of her time away from the house partying rather than raising her child. Pim spends most of his time at a neighbors house. This is where he meets a boy named Gino who he falls in love with. Pim likes to dream about things including drawing pictures of Gino.

There are some loves scenes in this movie between Pim and Gino. There is some stuff you might object to. Some people may not like the idea of guys kissing. Otherwise this movie is pretty clean. There is no violence in this movie. This is an interesting movie about teenage boys who fall in love. This movie shows a gay teenager named Pim whois a lot stronger that most people. He isn't confused in any sort of way. Pim isn't afraid to express his feelings towards Gino. This is a movie worth watching. It's a lot different that your typical love story.

I knew nothing about this film when I decided to check it out. The main character, a teenage boy Pim, lives with his single mother and older brother by the sea. He spends much of his time at his neighbor's house and slowly and gradually an attraction develops between Pim and the neighbor boy. Pim is a person a few words, as are several of the film's characters. I enjoyed watching the new and budding relationship between Pim and the neighbor boy, which they are of course compelled to keep hidden. Their relationship has its ups and downs but it always felt genuine to me. It is also short on dialogue, which I liked and did not see as a detriment but rather strengthened the films emotional impact. There were a few uneven/oddly handled sequences, small and short they were, but not enough to prevent me from ultimately enjoying this film experience.

For some people i can expect that this wouldn't be so perfect to them , but damn this is perfect to me. i can say that i've cried about 3 times while watching this specially at the end , which is satisfying compared with other German gay movies i have seen such as : summer storm , land of storms , free fall , sasha , beach rats .... as if Germans have this kind of love or relationship issues , but that one broke the rule . i loved how the story began with his childhood and then he met Gino and fell in love with him , oh poor pim . also want to add that i liked the song at the end very much . i really got attached to that movie .

Belgian/Flemish films are not shown too often, but it is always interesting to broaden mental outlook and obtain information about different cultures and approaches. Noordzee, Texas includes multiple topics uncommon in most films: gay coming of age, life in the middle of nowhere governed by winds, dunes and tides, irresponsible way of living in a closed community, for example. Life is monotonous, with any arrival or departure creating an event, but children grow and adults exist, and all this may have unexpected solutions and perspectives.

Performances are good, realistic (particularly Jelle Florizoone as Pim, Eva Van Der Gucht (as Yvette, Nina Marie Kortekaas as Sabrina), but due to the complexity and versatility of elements, the plot is not seamless, the balance between slow and fast scenes is odd sometimes. Anyway, strong 7 points from me, with a recommendation to watch - unless you are conservative or homophobic.

North Sea Texas is a beautiful, well-crafted and well-shot film. Wow, its been a while since I've seen such an amazing, unadulterated romantic journey. I'm not gay but regardless I fell in love with this film so much that I sat down to write a review here.

So the premise goes like this... Its about a boy named Pim (I'm not familiar with Dutch/Flemish culture but having seen a few of their films I think a lot of guys are named Pim) who is kind of an introvert, a dreamer, doesn't talk much and spends a lot of his time drawing the things he loves. Young Pim meets a guy nearby, Gino who is three years older than him and eventually falls in love with him. There is also Gino's sister Sabrina, who is the same age as Pim and their mother.

Pim's mother, Yvette, on the other hand is a feckless woman who spends most of her time drinking, singing and playing accordion at a local bar. Her entertaining skills have taken over her motherhood skills and clearly Pim doesn't like it. Then there is Etienne, a friend of her who pretty much escorts her and hangs out by the house all the time and Pim isn't a fan of him either. These troubles cause him to hang out at his best friend Gino's place all the time; and also at a local drinking hole called Texas, after which the movie's named. Gino's mother treats Pim like family and understands the fact that he is not lucky to have Yvette as his mother.

If a write more I might just end up telling the entire story and BTW I didn't spoil anything for you. I just loved this film.

The acting of everyone in the film was so immaculate that you can just feel the emotions of each of the characters. Sexual Frustration and coming-out is what this film is all about and its all so evident in all the actors' faces that you don't need to look at the subtitles below. The cinematography is breath-taking as it captures the lovely locales of the coast of North Sea in between scenes without taking our mind off the plot.

A special mention to actor, Jelle Florizoone, who did a fabulous job playing Pim. He was actually one of about 200 teenage boys who auditioned for the part of Pim, and was the immediate choice for the filmmakers. This is his first film as an actor. The entire film rests on the character, Pim and his life and he just makes the character come alive. The maudlin displays of emotion, the cheekiness of teenage love, the heartrending feelings of his first heart-break... Oh he was great! Just because its a gay-themed film doesn't mean straight people shouldn't watch it. It is an excellent film or rather journey of Pim which mesmerises us to 'live' the characters in the film.

Its a refreshing break over films where the characters indulge in a sleaze-fest all along and then, at the end, realise that love was here all along. Its a must watch for everyone who is tired of watching cheesy films, having the same story-line, over and over again...

I'm so glad I took a chance and watched this movie. It was a very sweet gay coming of age film. I think just about every gay man can relate to this movie, and remembers what it was like to have that first crush on someone. I liked the fact that there was no violence in this movie. No one gets bashed or bullied. And it even had a nice ending! The lead character (Pim) was really quite excellent in the role. I really enjoyed the fact that, often, he didn't even have to say much and could convey everything he was thinking with a look. I wish there were more movies like this one. The kind that you watch, and want to see more after it's over. Check it out. You won't regret it.

From Belgium comes this coming of age film which is not about Texas. North Sea Texas refers to a local emporium where even juveniles gather to drink whatever. Apparently Belgium has some rather loose drinking laws. It also has some loose laws regarding the age of consent because there's no way a film like this would be made in the USA with such young participants in even tastefully done sex scenes.

The two main participants are played by young actors different at different ages. Young Pim who is the only child of the town tramp starts having is gay feelings awakened by a slightly older neighbor boy Gino. Because he finds life so unappealing at his place Pim is over at Gino's a lot. Eventually these teens do the deed and do it over and over.

But these are years of exploration and soon enough Gino gets himself a girlfriend leaving an angry Pim the odd man out. Gino's sister likes Pim, but he can't see her at all.

How does it all come out? For that you have to see North Sea, Texas. When you do you will a nice coming of age film for gay youth that would be banned in Dixie.

Director Bavo Defurne has had a pretty successful career in writing, directing, and producing short films with the kind of active cinematography and intimacy his first feature film North Sea Texas has. Defurne's deep, often unblinking look at his subjects provide us with a truly stark look at their life, and by the end, even if the short was just ten or fifteen minutes long, we achieved an understanding with his characters and his motives became clear. Of course I'm talking about "Campfire," the short he's most regarded for. And let me say, North Sea Texas is no "Campfire." The story concerns a fourteen-year-old named Pim (Jelle Florizoone), who lives in the West Flemish area of France, circa 1970. His father is no longer alive, so his mother Yvette (Eva Van der Gucht) always seems to be in some sort of relationship. A neglected and unnoticed Pim begins to develop feelings for his seventeen-year-old neighbor, Gino (Mathias Vergels), which quickly turn sexual in the wake of Gino moving away with his girlfriend. It just so happens that Pim leaves his mother to live with other relatives and be closer with Gino and his ultimate goal is to try and make their star-crossed relationship work in the long run.

Coming-out cinema is beginning to grind not only its own gears together, making for many awkward, too little too late films, but my own personal ones too. Just having gay characters and a gay love story doesn't make a film edgy, exciting, or visceral on its own merits. There needs to be more human interest in the story and, unfortunately, this is greatly lacking here. For starters, there are too many characters. There's no real reason why the mother needed to have a boyfriend in the first place and there's no true reason why Pim had to go live with his relatives anyway. The film could've easily shown him as a neglected boy just because his mother and him were growing distant with each other.

Second, the film inhabits the increasingly tedious style of "less-is-more," minimalist filmmaking, which, for this type of story, simply does not work here. It's distracting and makes the film appear inherently vapid of content and story. There are too many scenes of extended periods of silence and too little scenes enriching us with these characters. Long silences can work in film if we're given something to contemplate during the time of the silence. All we're given is a very fragile, loose gay relationship between two young boys, and because of the lack of development we haven't become invested enough to truly care or even worried that something may not work out.

But it appears I'm being too hard on a film, whose good intentions are noticeable and somewhat credible. Jelle Florizoone is a fine, subtle screen presence, excelling at a role that is certainly brave for his age, and likewise for Mathias Vergels, whose older character has even a little more to thing about than his lover. Quite possibly the most electric scenes in North Sea Texas are when Pim and Gino are confronting their repressed sexual tendencies in a tent in the woods, which involve many intimate sequences and alive emotion. These scenes alone make the film hard to dislike in many ways.

Yet the problems in North Sea Texas are a bit too big to ignore. There's careful directing, beautiful cinematography (if we're comparing it to other works of queer cinema, it's about half as good as the kind we see in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain), and bold performances, but there's also methodical writing, too many characters, slow progression, and an achingly minimalist style present. All I can hope is that one day, the youth of France get a gay movie that could very well represent their culture in a more intricate, sophisticated way.

Starring: Jelle Florizoone, Mathias Vergels, Eva van der Gucht, Katelijne Damen, and Noor Ben Taouet. Directed by: Bavo Defurne.

This film is about a quiet and introverted young boy in Northern Belgium, who falls in love with the boy next door.

"North Sea, Texas" is a slow moving film, but it captures your attention by its great story telling. The story has little dialog, but a lot is told between the lines. Every action and every facial expression tells more than a thousand words. For example, the film tells viewers that the town is underprivileged by minor details such as Gino's mother pouring sugar sachets into a jar, and Pim's mother wearing the same dress almost every time she goes out. Towards the ending, there are scenes open to interpretation, leaving viewers to discuss what really happens.

"North Sea, Texas" is more of a film to feel and empathise. It is well made, and will touch your heart.

North Sea Texas

Very slow, atmospheric movie about young love in Holland, very well acted and had much to see about what is ultimately meaningful in life.

Glacial pace

The 'coming-of-age' genre is really too broad to describe North Sea Texas, the first feature film from Belgian Director Bavo Defurne. There have been many films which portray the highs and lows of adolescent gay love, but few which do so in a way which draws you into their world in such an imaginative and creative way. The awkward silences, deserted roads and the long empty beach are symbolic of the emotional isolation of "dreamer" Pim. His only refuge being the place where he feels acceptance and understanding is with his 'surrogate' family - single mother Marcella, her daughter Sabrina, and son Gino - the subject of his love.

Jelle Floorizoone, (Pim) carries the film with incredible maturity and professionalism, helped by an excellent cast of characters who add to the film's charm and depth. Empathy with Pim comes naturally, and many will have been down a similar road - though clever twists keep you guessing and, just when you think you know what's coming around the corner, it takes an unexpected turn. As the boys grow older Gino drifts away from Pim, into the arms of a French girl, culminating in a confrontation of rage on an empty wind-swept beach. "Sometimes people have to make choices" is Gino's excuse, but when his mother is taken seriously ill, he returns to find Pim at her side. Sometimes it takes the love of an understanding mother, through a simple gesture, to show that her son's choice may not be the right one.

Having first seen North Sea Texas in the cinema earlier this year, and now again on DVD, it's a film that warrants repeated viewings. Like a painting, North Sea Texas has many layers: the more you look the more you see, understand & appreciate. Emotional and uplifting, North Sea Texas is one of the most engaging & original films about adolescent gay love since Danish Director Lasse Nielsen's ground-breaking "You Are Not Alone".

Included on the DVD is a short but excellent Premiere Featurette and film trailer. Running time 01:34:19, format 2.35:1, audio Dolby Digital 5.1

This film disappointed me because the language used is some very clean and un-natural "dixi-antwerps". As the film plays at the sea side, it makes the accent even more unrealistic.

The movie is based on a novel and it feels like the dialogs have been taken literally which doesn't take into account how much more tolerant written language is compared to spoken.

Further, it feels like the scenes chosen drop a bit out of context, with little introduction as to why the characters feel towards one another like they do.

All in all, I found it mechanical and I didn't manage to feel with the characters.

If you are down, try this movie.

It's excellent creation of time and space. The actors are all believable.and this movie should have gone to the Oscars instead !

It would be nominated for best soundtrack, best picture, best actors, best photography.

Suited from 12 years old.

No violence.

Compare it with 'Get Real', and 'A beautiful Thing' but better.

It give an excellent idea how gay's explore their world in the 1950-1960's in Belgium.

Its just that type of film. You will thoroughly enjoy it and the boys are cute too!

The film centers around Belgian teenage Pim who is coming to grips with his homosexuality while also falling in love with his best friend, another teenage boy.

I'll start with the things I liked. The acting is good. The main character is sympathetic and likable. The plot is very easy to follow and generally relatable. And the minimal score ans end credits song are nice. I quite liked how this film really delved into the isolation and confusion that can often come with being gay while growing up and going against the expectations of you being straight from everyone around you. Pim feels isolated from everyone, except the boy he falls for.

One issue I have with the film is that, outside the main character Pim, all of the other characters felt very dull and flavorless, like they were there to serve the plot rather than being real people. But I guess I also can't fault the film for that because it's more of a character study than anything else. My biggest issue though is that the love Pim expresses for his best friend feels very flat and shallow, like he's in lust rather than in love. And maybe that's the point from the filmmaker. But I felt like the two boys liked each other only for physical and sexual reasons, and not much else. The film never really shows the two boys talking about life, talking about why they like each other, nor talking about deeper issues past just enjoying each other. And my last issue with the film is that at times the characters say things or act in ways that flew over my head or that I didn't quite understand. Perhaps it's an issue of the translation. But that's likely because a lot of cultural nuances of the film are lost on me as I'm American and the film is set in Belgium.

It's a pretty good film, definitely worth a watch. But I do think it could've been better.