ScreenWize

For those who like their movies stripped back to the basics of story and performance, this is the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner from last year. It’s a simple and sometimes harrowing tale of small lives and bad decisions, made in a style reminiscent of the French cinema of the 1960’s.

Writing and directing duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne come from a long background in documentary, and this tradition is clear in this narrative film, with hand-held camera, minimal editing, no music and a focus that leaves much to the skills of their cast, who deliver superbly.

Sonia (Deborah Francois) and Bruno (Jeremie Renier) are not much more than children themselves. They live on the fringes of urban life in an industrial Belgian town, Bruno buying and trading stolen goods and then blowing the cash on whatever grabs his attention. Sonia, only 18, manages to keep a tiny apartment on her unemployment benefits. They seem to live in the moment, unambitious and unglamorous, simply making the most of whatever comes their way. They have a playful and impulsive relationship that seems at odds with the new object in their life: a baby boy, their child. So when Bruno decides to sell the baby to black-market racketeers, as he has every other object that passes through his hands, the relationship not surprisingly unravels. From here we follow Bruno as he tries desperately to regain Sonia’s love, but with no willingness to embrace responsibility of any kind he only manages to make their squalid world worse, and it becomes clear who really is the child in this story.

This is superb social realism, with all its gritty bleakness and in-your-face intimacy. We share simple joys and mindless moments alike, the camera documenting the story in a no nonsense way. Some may find this slow at times, but the Dardenne brothers wind up the tension in places and leave us in a constant state of uncertainty about what will happen next in Bruno’s world of self-indulgence. Renier plays the casually likeable Bruno with an intense honesty, and manages to convince us that, despite his despicable choices and woefully errant behaviour, he is just trying to do his best. Francois, in her debut role, skilfully captures the confused naivety of the girlfriend made a mother too young.

This is an unsentimental film about life. We are quietly drawn into the world of two people who seem surrounded by danger, not the least of which is their own lack of self-understanding.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon