Filmgoers are currently gobbling up Luca Guadagnino’s tennis comedy Challengers with its hilariously imagined sexual dynamic between a female coach and male players. This debut feature from Belgian film-maker Leonardo Van Dijl is a reminder that in the real world, the gender relations of sex and power in tennis – or anywhere – are generally pretty different. Julie Keeps Quiet is a tense, absorbing movie of silences and absences, of difficult terrain skirted around, of subjects avoided. It’s a reminder that in key situations, to keep quiet is a stressful, strenuous and, crucially, public activity – and a survival instinct that many young people have to learn.
The scene is an exclusive Belgian youth tennis academy where Julie is the star player, played very convincingly by newcomer and talented teen tennis player Tessa Van den Broeck. Julie’s ferocious skills are clearly bringing her to the brink of professional stardom under the aegis of the Belgian Tennis Federation, and extended sequences in the film show her simply playing, hitting, training and working out, her anxieties sublimated into sport. Yet at the very beginning, Van Dijl shows us Julie weirdly playing “mime” tennis, running about the court, pretending to hit a non-existent ball.
