|
| |
 | ||||
| Home | Profile | Search | Help | Logout | Film Archives | Feature Archives | |||
 | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
|
||||
| 2005 NYFF Films Introduction Good Night, and Good Luck Regular Lovers The Death of Mr. Lazarescu Methadonia L'Enfant (The Child) Bubble The Squid and the Whale I Am Capote Something Like Happiness Sympathy for Lady Vengeance Manderlay Tale of Cinema Breakfast on Pluto Through the Forest The President's Last Bang Who's Camus Anyway? Three Times Paradise Now Tristram Shandy Gabrielle The Sun The Passenger Cache (Hidden) | L'Enfant (The
Child) Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium / France, 2005, 100 min.  The Dardennes, who won their second Palme d¹Or at Cannes this year with L¹Enfant, describe it as "a love story that is also the story of a father." Twenty-year-old Bruno (Jérémie Renier) is a petty thief and scam artist in Seraing, an east Belgian steel town, who lives off his girlfriend¹s welfare and impulsively spends whatever he steals. When eighteen-year-old Sonia (Deborah Francois) returns after the birth of their son Jimmy, Bruno¹s far worse than merely unready to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. Unbeknownst to Sonia, he decides to sell the baby on the black market. The film is about what happens following this grotesquely ill-advised decision. L¹Enfant is urgent with movement and has little talk. As with La promesse (The Promise, 1996, where Jeremie Renier debuted), and Rosetta and Le fils (The Son), the action is ceaseless and obsessive and seems almost real-time. But the Dardennes make a few quiet times count. In those rare moments when the hyper-kinetic Bruno is momentarily still and the camera looks into his face there¹s a strong sense of the doubt that will lead to his transformation. When Bruno tells Sonia "I¹m sorry," "I need you" and "I love you" the words carry weight because he doesn¹t say such things. But Sonia says "You lie as you breathe." L¹Enfant, which is dominated by the dynamic and physically striking Renier, is as powerful and accomplished as anything the Dardennes have done, and as thought-provoking. Bruno¹s redemption, however, remains in doubt. (Chris Knipp) |
|