Teodora Ana Mihalyi’s Hazel 85 keenly observes and documents the violence that erupts before major soccer matches in Brussels. It’s set in the real-life 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster, but the drama is portrayed through fictional reporters and local leaders, creating an immersive political microcosm. Combining staged footage and archival tapes, Mihaly creates interpretive works that feel distinctly current, evoking the era with deft aesthetic control. Despite coming so close, it remains an unsettling film.
Beginning with a montage of news footage from that day – the infamous May 1985 European Cup final between Italian club Juventus and English rivals Liverpool – the film’s release alerts, or rather warns, viewers that disturbing historical footage may follow. The official transcript is a scene in which Belgian-based Italian reporter Luca (Mateo Simoni) interviews a young boy, an enthusiastic Juventus fan, who turns out to be Luca’s younger brother, on the radio, which seamlessly gives way to documentary-style 16mm footage of Mihai. The chaotic sound of fans flowing into Heysel Stadium creates an enveloping atmosphere, moving between real and unreal images. This sophistication is only revealed by the wider aspect ratio of the dramatized elements (compared to the televised 4:3 tape).
With similar panache and no hand-holding, the focus of the story is passed like a relay race baton to the arriving mayor Dumont (Josse de Pau) and his daughter and press secretary Marie (Violet Blackman). Their presence draws both news cameras and film frames inside the stadium’s offices and VIP lounges, trading footage of actual matchday fans for a dramatic tour of the back rooms beneath the stands, which are normally unavailable, as the roar from the crowd grows louder outside and above.
Many topics come up during press conferences and private discussions, including public safety, but Dumont puts them aside. His focus is on the visuals of the match and on entertaining the Italian dignitaries who came to watch. But before the characters realize it, news and whispers begin to leak out about a bloody conflict between fans, and they’re in a disaster movie. Honest Marie and Luca begin gathering information while helping people translate between English, Italian, Dutch, and French.
Like a blazing inferno, the riot escalated quickly and suddenly. But while the reaction is worrying, politicians and police officers alike appear to be deliberately (and pre-emptively) shifting blame. Eventually, it becomes clear to our good-natured heroes, the military attaché and the reporter, that this situation could have been avoided had their egos not gotten in the way. Incorporating more and more actual clips of the day’s events, the film deftly cross-cuts with snaking shots of the stadium’s hallways, crowded with bloody figures (some injured, some dead), as Marie tries to make sense of the situation while helping others, and Luca tries to track down his missing family members.
Mihaly’s films have long depicted women overcoming oppressive systems, including “La Civil,” which won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes, and “Traffic,” which was submitted to the Oscars in Romania last year. Her use of Marie (a woman whose ideas are often dismissed in this field) as a point-of-view figure also speaks to a similar approach. It also reflects Mihaly’s own starting point in making a film about a significant event in the history of football, a subject she describes as an “unusual suspect”.
However, the film’s short running time of 91 minutes sometimes overemphasizes this thematic focus by drawing attention to certain misogynistic interactions and reactions. While this is undoubtedly laudable ethically, it’s also aesthetically awkward in that it draws focus and energy from the pervasiveness of the erupting brutality and din of the entire ensemble, even though the worlds of sports, politics, and sports politics are notoriously hostile to women. While Marie is an important protagonist trying to break free from her father’s control, the most important character is arguably the event itself, how it transforms and mutates, and ultimately vomits its body.
Nevertheless, “Heysel 85” turns out to be attractive in all aspects. This is due not only to how Mihaly and cinematographer Marius Pandur control the chaotic movement of the frame, but also to the realism with which the entire production is portrayed, from the costume and spatial design to the performances, which sit effortlessly between naturalism and symbolism.
The release of a film like this in the year of the FIFA World Cup is a stark reminder of the intertwining of soccer and corruption, and De Pauw’s performance as Mayor Dumont, a man who tries to compartmentalize and pass on profits, is wonderfully pathetic. But the human soul here lies in Blackman and Simoni’s committed work as well-meaning people forced into morally difficult situations, each torn in their own way between family and social obligations.
Although the unrest appears to have temporarily subsided, there remains the looming question of how to defuse the ticking time bomb of 60,000 rowdy spectators packed into a sealed stadium, a dilemma that has been particularly fanned outward as a metaphor for confronting an aggrieved world. There’s not a moment in “Hazel 85” where you don’t feel like you’re doused in gasoline. That event took place more than 40 years ago, but watching it unfold is a stark reflection of what it feels like to live in a world teetering on a knife’s edge.
