Not since Fridrik Thór Fridriksson’s Children of Nature has there been a film that gazes so unflinchingly into the loneliness and humiliation of old age. And oddly enough, it’s the unusual setting (a small Flemish village on the Belgian coast) that gives Lieven Debrauwer’s movie a universal look and feel.

Pauline is a 66-year-old retarded woman who has lived with her sister Martha since their parents died. Pauline lives for visiting and pestering her sister Paulette, who owns a posh lingerie shop in the village. When Martha dies suddenly, Paulette takes Pauline in until other arrangements can be made; but sister Cecile has a lover and a tiny apartment in Brussels. Martha’s will stipulates that her assets will be equally distributed among her sisters only if one of them takes care of Pauline. The resulting clash of wills means little to Pauline, whose childlike awareness registers only pleasure, pain, comfort, and confusion. The film benefits from its stark look as well from its bold color structure and its realistic performances. What could have been a saccharine or predictable story instead proves haunting. To those of us who have contemplated growing old, at any rate.