ScreenWize

That Australian filmmakers haven’t followed the model established by Belgium’s Dardenne brothers is a mystery – simple stories, complex characters, naturalistic and straightforward production values, all combining to produce compelling, low budget filmmaking with an emphasis on character and performance. Since winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1999 with Rosetta, every film they have made has been selected for Cannes, and their 2005 film L’Enfant (The Child) won the top prize for the two brothers a second time. Their extraordinary success at Cannes Festival continued at the last festival when their new film Lorna’s Silence picked up the Best Screenplay award.

It’s a continuation of the distinctive style and of the pre-occupations that have percolated through their earlier work. Originally documentary filmmakers, brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc – both in their 50’s – are interested in the edges of society where dramas take on a heightened significance, where characters have more to loose and where people behave in ways that pose intriguing questions of the outsider – the viewer. They have made nearly all their films in their hometown of Seriang located in the old industrial heartland of Belgium, a working class iron and steel city where –in Luc’s words, “a weariness set in from 1975 which has lasted up until now.” It’s here that the brothers find their intriguing central characters. “Fifteen percent of the population lives outside consumerism, production, and these people just survive, complain from time to time when they can, but are not unified. There is no organisation, and they are disregarded. These are the people we are interested in.”

But theirs is no loose Cinema Verite – there are carefully constructed stories in all their films that make their work so engaging. There’s also a careful attention to making characters whole and captivating. “We like to film people as if they are survivors after a catastrophe – trying to re-find humanity” said Jean-Pierre in an interview, “people who are trying to find the gestures of a normal life. And we portray them without excuses because we don’t give them victim status. To survive is to first think about oneself.”

From a simple starting point such as seeing a 15 year old girl violently pushing a pram in the backstreets of Seraing (which became The Child), or hearing about a junkie who agreed to an arranged marriage with an Albanian prostitute, (the trigger for Lorna’s Silence), the brothers develop their narratives around deeply fascinating people. They may not seem to be doing much on screen all the time, but they are always enigmatic, and often produce superb performances for the actors willing to take the challenge.

In Lorna’s Silence, Kosovo-Albanian actress Arta Dobroshi creates a deeply moving portrait of Lorna, an Albanian refugee trying to secure residency in Belgium through an arranged marriage. But Lorna has little power in her situation – struggling against the local mafia on the outside and her own values on the inside. She dreams for a normal life – running a little café with her boyfriend – but has the Dardenne “catastrophe” of her past to overcome. The camera follows her in typical Dardenne documentary style as she works out what to do, making little choices, taking small and human steps, but always searching for her own way out.

SW

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon