Meander (Joke Liberge, 2005)

The In-Between

Joke Liberge’s Meander (2005)

essay by

Boet Meijers

Translated by

Flo Vanhorebeek

20.07.2026

As you approach your twelfth birthday, you are inevitably split in two; one half is still a child—dependent on your parents, interested in Beyblades, licorice, scented felt-tip pens and sticks that look like weapons. The other half begins to see itself as a sovereign being, carefully shaping an identity, its sights set on a hazy goal that has suddenly appeared on the horizon: adulthood.

Joke Liberge’s short film Meander is set on a summer afternoon and follows a group of boys and girls who find themselves in said transitional phase, on the cusp of puberty. With rubber rings and towels around their necks, they cycle to a pier on the Dutch Meuse to swim in the river and laze about in the blissful emptiness of their summer holidays. Cow parsley and rapeseed, having reached their midsummer height, offer shelter from the outside world and enclose a testing ground where the children can dip their toes into adult life without hindrance.

As on any successful summer’s day, close to nothing happens. The boys compete for the girls’ attention, while the girls, for their part, see them as nothing more than little brothers. Still, they do steal glances from one another. This emptiness contrasts with a wealth of sensory experiences: gentle breezes rustling through the treetops, feet on wooden decking and a summer sun generously casting its light over everything—all of which make the season feel like the protagonist, so tangibly rendered on the big screen. But unlike how such an afternoon would actually sound, Meander is devoid of dialogue. Apart from the occasional exclamation, the children do not speak. Pointing and gesturing are enough to make themselves understood. As a result, they seem to symbolise their age group rather than being individuals. In this way, the depicted summer afternoon belongs a little bit to everyone: a shared memory of days that, when looked back on, feel like nothing but bliss, even though they were, above all, coloured by sweaty uncertainty.

Liberge manages to portray believable characters remarkably well, despite the lack of dialogue. Not only are the children left undisturbed within the narrative, indeed the entire film crew seems to have blended into the background, hidden among the vegetation on the riverbank. Such is the naturalness of the actors’ performances. The children pick at their belly buttons and chew on their fingers as if no one were watching. The camera observes almost invisibly. It just peeks in.

Usually, the voyeur does not belong to the world he is spying on. He is unwelcome and therefore forced to gain access from a distance. Just like the adult viewer who can enjoy a bygone era of which they are no longer a part, but to which they still want to belong in some way. Because once they were just like them, and the years depicted were so formative that it still feels as though they belong to them in some way. However, even the voyeur needs an anchor—a point of entry into the world onscreen, a mooring post around which to throw a rope.

Meander

Joke Liberge, Belgium, 2005, 15’

On a hot summer day, five teenagers go to a river to cool off. They swim, they sleep, they eat snacks and ice cream. As music and dialogue are missing, everyday sounds attract attention: bicycles riding on gravel, feet gliding through water, gasps and splutters.

Apart from the occasional exclamation, the children do not speak. Pointing and gesturing are enough to make themselves understood. As a result, they seem to symbolise their age group rather than being individuals.

Boet Meijers

We find this anchor point in one of the boys. He already stands out in the opening scene. He’s the only one sitting on the back of someone else’s bike, with his nose buried in his Game Boy screen. Later, on the pier, he’s still playing, his knees tucked up and still fully dressed. He is the last to jump into the water, and does so without splashing about or showing off like the others, but rather timidly, driven more by the fear of being left out of the group. The fun is overshadowed by his pale-faced hesitation, his quiet deliberation that must remain hidden from the mocking gaze of his peers. When an inland vessel sails past, the children climb onto the deck, only to jump back off a few seconds later. Once again, our boy is the last to stay behind. Hesitantly, he stands on the edge and watches the dark water flow past. The tactile quality the film has evoked so far takes on a different feel; without any direct visual cue, you can sense how the ship’s propeller cuts through the water with eerie, relentless force.

It feels as though someone must be punished for that leap. It is the gaze of an adult looking at children and dictating that making the right choice means not succumbing to herd mentality and acting according to one’s own judgement, daring to take a different path when the risk of going along with the crowd is too great. “And if your friend were to jump off a building, would you do the same?”: a favourite rhetorical weapon for many parents to bring their child to their senses after they’ve done something foolish. But is there no value to be found in dangerous, irresponsible behaviour? Isn’t it important to go with the flow, to discover what the world and others want and expect of you, and what happens when you give in to that? Secretly, you want to be proven right; you wish something terrible would happen to the boy—out of a thirst for excitement, to be freed from the tension, and perhaps also to justify all those times you decided not to jump off the boat.

It’s a rather gloomy train of thought on a lovely summer’s day, when almost nothing happens. By the end of the day, everything is still exactly as it was, and this will continue for another six blissful weeks.