L'Enfant
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
Sony Pictures Classics
2006
Rating:


That filmmakers like Belgium's Jean-Piere and Luc Dardenne exist in this world is a miracle. With each film they make, the Dardenne brothers depict the world in all its bleakness, yet they still find the potential for transcendence.

Set, like most the Dardennes' films, in the Belgian port city of Seraing, "L'Enfant" follows Bruno (Jérémie Renier), a man-child desperately in need of realizing the limitations of the material world.

Bruno has fathered a son with his girlfriend Sophia (Déborah François), but he's disinterested in Jimmy's birth. Bruno couldn't even be bothered to visit Sophia in the hospital. When Sophia arrives home after giving birth, she discovers Bruno has sublet her apartment and has to fight the current occupants just to retrieve her cell phone charger. The money from the rent has already been spent by Bruno on a leather porkpie hat and a stylish striped jacket.

Yet when Bruno has the chance he lavishes gifts and affection on his family. They may have spent the night in a boarding house, but Bruno buys Sophia a matching jacket and Jimmy a bassinet and he rents a convertible for the day.

Bruno isn't as immoral as his actions may imply. He's merely selfish, having been trained in a ruthlessly capitalistic society to look out for himself. It's an acute bit of social realism rendered through characterization. But there's no denying that Bruno's "my, me, mine" behavior is, in fact, childish.

Thinking only of himself, yet vaguely aware that what he's doing is wrong, Bruno goes for a walk with the baby and sells it to an unseen black market dealer who assures him Jimmy will be going to a wealthy family. Bruno convinces himself — and tries to convince Sophia — that they can't afford the baby and they need the money to survive. Bruno is oblivious to the fact that Jimmy means more to Sophia that money until Sophia goes into shock and has to be hospitalized.

The remainder of "L'Enfant" involves Bruno's attempts to set things right and, in the process, putting away his childish things.

Shot in the intense verité style that has become the Dardennes' trademark, the brothers find more humanity in the nape of Bruno's neck than most filmmakers find in slickly choreographed and softly lit Cinemascope views. Like Robert Bresson ("Pickpocket") and such Italian neorealists as Vittorio De Sica ("The Bicycle Thief"), the Dardennes can find tension in the everyday and the humanity in the most desperate of situations.

"L'Enfant" ends with, of all things, a chase, and never has a chase scene been staged in such a way. As he's doggedly pursued for stealing a purse, Bruno puts the life of another child in danger, and his race through the streets becomes an existential and transformative experience, one that will finally turn Bruno into a man or keep him in a state of halted maturation. The film's final moment of unforced emotional release is, like the existence of the Dardennes, a miracle.

Posted Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/l'enfant