User Reviews

A grandfather and grandmother lose three of their closest family members by violence. Only their nine-year-old grandson survives, although in a woefully battered shape. During the next years the grandparents struggle to take care of their grandson, which will prove very difficult. However, trying to obtain some kind of justice or retribution or reparation will prove impossible. Even asking for an explanation feels like asking for the moon...

"Niet schieten" is based on a book, which resulted from a collaboration between a reporter and a real-life survivor of the 1985 attack on a supermarket in Aalst. (Aalst is a city in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, known for its rich carnival tradition.) The blood-drenched attack was part of a series of raids and hold-ups committed by, or attributed to, the "Gang of Nivelles", aka "The killers of Brabant". These crimes shared two highly disquieting characteristics : 1) the gangsters used a level of violence rarely seen outside of a drug-infested war zone and 2) they kept on going and going and going, even while obtaining little loot.

None of these crimes have been properly solved, in spite of enough official reports to pave the way from Belgium to China and back. For the various victims - or for the friends and relatives of the various victims - this meant unending suffering without any hope of closure. Lacking an explanation, Belgian citizens have had to use their imagination. By now dozens of competing theories exist : was this a coup d'état, a terror operation by the extreme right/left/whatever, or even a successful marketing campaign aimed at selling heavy weaponry ? Probably the truth will never be discovered...

It is clear that director Stijn Coninx has done his best to treat the material with the patience and respect it deserves. The result is a moving portrayal of a once happy family, the surviving members of which desperately try to understand what happened to them. These same people do not receive much in the way of legal and financial support. Instead they are left to navigate a treacherous quicksand of malice, incompetence and inertia. (Well, "quicksand" might not be the right word - "slowsand" might be better.)

Viviane de Muynck and Jan Decleir are deeply moving as devastated grandparents asked to raise their grandson at an age where they expected a well-deserved rest. The movie also includes a shocking reconstruction of the Aalst attack, what with a bunch of masked criminals moving through an unsuspecting crowd with all the speed and voracity of a fire disaster.

The first half of "Niet schieten" is absolutely riveting. Sadly the movie loses some of its power and impact during the second half. Still, a brave movie on an important subject, and a moving monument to the many innocent lives destroyed by the "Gang of Nivelles".

How do you feel, when in one day you lose 3 of your family members. Not by accident, but cold blood murder in a supermarket. The murderers are still not found.