We learn about them and are slowly drawn into caring about these individuals.. for that alone it's a terrific little film. It just has so many wonderful scenes, and there are several fine performances, coming from actors you in all probability have never seen or heard of before. Barbara Sarafian.. bit.ly/16qn7oL .. is of special note... she is from start to finish superb. Read a great line about her performance in the film.. "Sarafian is acting every second she's on screen, yet you never catch her at it." As for the two lead characters.. do they 'make it' and ultimately stay together.. who knows, but they have given us allot of enjoyment just in meeting up. Watch it.. you will enjoy it.

In many ways this movie that, astonishingly enough, has received some negative reviews, is indeed yet another familiar story about a woman, in this case, Matty, a frustrated mother of three who has been abandoned by her husband for a younger girl and who not only wonders what her life has been all about but particularly what the future holds in store for her now that she has reached the age of forty-one. Her chance encounter with a random trucker as the result of a minor traffic accident signifies a turning point in her life. Johnny, the trucker, is immediately infatuated with this woman who is twelve years his senior and his amorous attempts at seducing her, slowly lead Matty to the realization that not only is she still attractive as a woman but also that deep-down her emotions are still alive. As the story develops, the viewer learns that Johnny has a past and also a drinking problem and that Matty's estranged husband is making attempts to return to his family. Matty is caught in the middle and also has to deal with the ongoing sarcastic comments made by her eldest daughter ( a convincing role excellently performed by Anemone Valcke) Matty however grows stronger and more confident mainly as a result of the animosity between the two male contenders that is often more an expression of immature childish bickering than that of two grown-up males. She encounters more obstacles on the complicated road to self-realization but when in the final scene, we see her walking next to a rail road track and in a flash we are reminded of the vague thoughts she once expressed of ending her life under a train, we are quickly reassured by her convincing smile that although she cannot predict the future, at present, all is well. Barbara Sarafian's portrayal of Matty is excellent.Matty is a real woman but above all a (feminine) person: she worries about her age, her looks, her responsibilities, her future and her alternating feelings of hope and despair are wonderfully reflected in her appearance: at times she radiates real beauty while at others she's just another plain Jane.The men in her life are basically very weak:due to his own feelings of insecurity her husband is very dependent on her and burdens her with responsibilities he dare not (cannot?) take himself while her lover is somewhat too young and playful to be convincingly assertive. Jurgen Delnaet who plays Johnny succeeds brilliantly in portraying the rugged trucker in search of a strong woman who will guide him on his way and Johan Heldenbergh as the husband who's experiencing a mid-life crisis is very convincing. The dialog is natural and the acting of the whole cast, superb. A worthy contribution to modern Flemish film making.

I loved this movie! It's amusing, touching, warm, sweet and salty and an exercise in great acting. Funny, but this the second movie I've watched recently that's set in Belgium (the other was 'In Bruges'). The nation must be striving to throw off its dull image and present a new face to the world. Moscow Belgium certainly overturns the concept that dysfunctional families are confined to North America. Here we have Eurodisfunction. Moscow (strictly Moscou) is the name of the suburb the protagonists inhabit, which as far as I can see is between Gent and the North Sea coast. It is glimpsed very briefly on the destination board on the front of a bus. This seemed to cause confusion amongst our audience and I overheard several muttered conversations as I left the theatre as to what on earth Russia had to do with it? So possibly the movie name has lost something in translation? It translates better as Collision in Moscou. Barbara Sarafian plays Matty, a rather dowdy, phlegmatic, forty-something mother of three whose art teacher husband Werner has left her for one of his students some five and a half months before. She works in a post office, takes care of the kids and – when we meet her first – is trudging half heartedly around the local megastore buying groceries. Matty is more dead than alive. Exiting the car park, she reverses into the truck of Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet) a red haired, alcoholic but quite cute truck driver some ten years her junior, and a sharp exchange of views ensues about fault and blame, which ends abruptly with the arrival of the traffic police, called by Matty. It seems Johnny has a record. The next day he turns up at her apartment to fix her damaged trunk and he asks her out for a drink. Johnny is intrigued by Matty, but she is less than enamoured of him. All she wants – she thinks – is her old life back; her husband home, her kids behaving and everything ordered and where it should be. Her coworker at the post office has assured her that sexual passion only lasts six months, so Werner will be back soon. But Johnny is persistent and Werner is flaky. Whereas Werner's new girlfriend phones him at awkward times, interrupting all his attempts to converse with his wife, Johnny is amusing and unequivocal about his desire to get Matty into his bed – or at least into the cab of his truck where he has a bunk. Matty can't quite believe she's doing this but is torn between the quiet life of a known but cheating husband and the roller coaster ride of a relationship with marginally criminal but laddishly attractive Johnny.Then she discovers that Johnny put his ex wife in hospital and all bets are off. Can someone who has done prison time for hitting his last woman be trusted to have changed? Even if he does bond with her son at an air show and bring her Italian designer shoes from his road trips and make her feel sexier than she's felt in years. Lurking in the background of all of this domestic drama are Matty and Werner's three bright children, nerdy Peter who is into airplanes, Fien who tells everyone's fortune with a deck of tarot cards and old-for-her-years Vera, who at sixteen watches and learns from the complicated mess the supposed adults are making of their sex lives. The intimate and often dull details of domestic life are lovingly filmed; Matty's obsession for feeding them blood sausage to build up pale Peter's health, the hours spent watching her laundry tumble around at the laundromat, Johnny sitting obediently at the dinner table like a slightly older version of her kids while she serves up family dinner. In one delicious scene, Johnny, Werner, Matty, the kids – everyone – share a meal while sniping at each other politely over the dinner plates and then in the midst of this domestic bliss, Vera introduces her girlfriend. She's decided life will be simpler if she is gay. Vera is played by Anemone Valcke who is both absolutely gorgeous and a very good young actress and I expect to see much, much more of her in future. The script is perfect, the dialogue real – even in subtitles – and the direction quite understated. There are subtle under tones of a fading European class system at work here too, with teacher Werner obviously thinking Johnny – as a mere truck driver whose father was a railway worker – is intellectually his inferior. You get the feeling that Werner thinks his wife is a bit déclassé too, but of course he can hardly complain about her sleeping with Johnny when he is now bedding a student. I always think a 'foreign language' movie works really well when the acting is so good that you are barely aware that you are reading subtitles. There is no attempt to overstate the humour and force feed it to the audience, rather we absorb the irony and drama of the situation while Matty weighs up the potential fun and excitement of a new life with slightly dodgy but adoring Johnny against the known status quo of getting back together with pretentious Werner. Great movie of human foibles and middle aged love. Go see.

Do not we all sometimes dream about a magic event that romantically turns our life in the ideal direction? Aanrijding in Moscou is just that: a film starting with a remarkable daily event resulting in a fully believable romantic story.It instantly picks you up in the beginning and takes you on a road through love and life in Gent, steadily sustained by its dialect and its typical cuisine.It shows how normal people try to live a normal live (and let's be honest: does such a thing really exist?) and how passion, emotion and our past have their influence on our lives.I was very moved by the film and especially by a scene where Johnny and Matty have a seemingly unimportant conversation discussing and putting into place the meaning of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa".Yes, as the glimpses of an Italian framework showed to me the greatness of this Belgian masterpiece I am absolutely sure there is something in it for EVERYONE. Sit back and be moved!