"The Broken Circle Breakdown" opens on a tight shot of a group of down-home, country bluegrass musicians performing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." They may be "down home"—but not in the country you think. Though their English sounds flawless, they are actually Flemish musicians in Ghent 2006. And that American country classic they're singing? It's actually a religious hymn written by an Englishwoman over a hundred years ago. But the universal landscape circumscribed by that song—a spinning wheel of reason and faith—propels the heartbreaking tale that's about to unfold and the questions it raises: Is there life after death? Will the circle be unbroken?
The bluegrass score is gorgeous—old and newly written tunes interwoven as musical interludes punctuating the film's themes. In fact, the film itself is structured like a bittersweet bluegrass song; the movie begins in the middle of Didier and Elise's relationship, then unwinds like a tune circling a recurring refrain, back and forth in time, between present and past, in an ever-widening circumference, deepening our understanding of their inner lives. Gradually we realize that Elise's attraction to the symbolic world, and the scars she wears—will lead her on a collision course with Didier's pragmatism and affinity for the "can do" optimism of America.