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Their first directorial effort since the much acclaimed The Son, Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne’s L’Enfant is a more emotionally charged and less morally ambiguous, albeit as psychologically complex tale when compared to the former. Filmed with the kind of stark and grim realism that has become a hallmark for the Dardenne brothers, the movie comprises of a strong social commentary in the story of Bruno, a young small-time hustler who realizes the kind of reverberations that an act of utter ethical and moral callousness – th of selling his new-born baby in the gray market, can cause. His comeuppance becomes really profound not just because Sonia, his girlfriend and the baby’s mother, is expectedly mad at him, but because, perhaps for the first time in his life, he is having to face the immaturity and irresponsibility that have come to define his very existence. Thus, by the time of its powerful final scene, Bruno has become a more rounded person from being just another surface-deep crook. The acting of the two principal leads has helped in exploring the moral chaos that typifies life in a colourless urban jungle. As with The Son, the movie has been filmed in an unspectacular cinema verité style and is devoid of any background score – as if the Dardenne’s camera is just a silent bystander observering life.
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama
Language: French
Country: Belgium
Dardenne brothers’ The Son is a difficult movie to classify, and hence assess in a few words as I do here. A complex and quietly unsettling character study, the movie is about revenge and catharsis – only that, like Revanche, the revenge never happens, and the catharsis is muted to the point of silent implosion. Oliver Gourment, a regular in the Belgian siblings’ movies, has given a deeply layered and restrained, yet undeniably breathtaking performance as Oliver, a middle-aged and laconic carpentry instructor who, incidentally or accidentally, comes in contact with a young apprentice who in turn, many years back, was responsible for his son’s death. The fist half of the movie is about his growing albeit fidgety obsession with the boy, while the second lies in his trying to come to peace with his own mind, once and for all. The camera movement, which continually follows Oliver from his back, makes watching the movie a deeply disorienting and onerous experience; yet, strangely, it paves way to a feel of immediacy and passive attachment to the withdrawn protagonist who might not have been as accessible to the viewers otherwise. This arthouse movie might thus be relentlessly bleak, disquieting and demanding, but the end product is a powerful, layered and enriching work of art laced with grim realism, religious symbolisms and metaphors.
Director: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: French
Country: Belgium
