Le ville

Most people have heard of Liège, Belgium in the context of the First World War, when the German army invaded the fortified city on its way to France. Said fortifications are no longer there because of the Germans' Howitzers, but the city itself has some interesting sights behind its grimy industrial veneer (more on that below).

More recently, the French-speaking Wallonian city just south of the border with the Netherlands has been in the spotlight because of the Dardenne brothers, the filmmakers who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2005 with L'Enfant (The Child). That movie, along with La promesse and Le silence de Lorna (I have not yet seen Rosetta or Le fils), present Liège as a gloomy, drab place populated by people mired in desperation and misery. In L'Enfant, the main characters are teenagers who inadvertently have a child and are then caught up in a baby-selling ring. La promesse and Le silence de Lorna, very realistic films about illegal immigrants, present the challenge western European countries face regarding the opening of the Eastern Bloc and the continuing stream of north African immigration to the Continent. With the exception of Le silence (which had a strange, quasi-fantastic ending), the movies are anti-Hollywood in the best way, while avoiding the smarmy cuteness of many recent French movies or the preachy self-importance of European auteurs like Michael Haneke (Heather and I struggled through the glacial The White Ribbon at the Belcourt recently).

So, as we headed toward Liège, Heather was put off by what we saw in L'Enfant and wondered why we (along with Jim) were taking the 45-minute drive south. Her worries were abated (after we left the seedy neighborhood in which we parked) when we got to the town center and walked among the very local non-tourists in the old town warren.





Lunch time.

The police headquarters in an old palace by the Hôtel de Ville.

The courtyard of the police headquarters.

Cathedral to follow...