THE KID WITH A BIKE: RETURN OF THE DARDENNE BROS.

Absence plays a strong role in the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (L'enfant, The Son), one could even describe the condition of loss as a recurring character within their celebrated body of work.  Often, as in their latest film, The Kid With a Bike, what's missing is within arm's reach, an unrealized desire made worse by proximity to what the character craves.

In The Kid With a Bike, it's the abandonment of a young boy named Cyril (Thomas Doret) by his father, Guy (Jérémie Renier), that drives the story forward.  As the film opens, Cyril begins to realize that his temporary stay at a home for boys is a far more permanent arrangement than his father had promised.  What's more, Guy has moved out of his apartment without leaving a forwarding address, selling Cyril's bicycle to a neighbor boy in the process.

Cyril retrieves his bike in a rough and tumble manner, presaging further violence down the line, and sets off to track down his father.  Returning to his father's last known place of residence, he comes under the notice of Samantha (Cécile De France), a hairdresser living in Guy's old apartment building.  Taking pity on the boy, Samantha aids Cyril in his search for his father but is unable to protect him from the harsh truths that await him.

The Kid With a Bike arrives with a built in audience.  The Dardennes are certified critical darlings and art-house favorites.  They're among a very small crowd of directors to have won the prestigious Palme d'Or multiple times at the Cannes Film Festival (this newest work took second place--the Grand Prix--at the 2011 fest).  Few directors working today operate with as unified of a vision as the Dardenne brothers; their extremely effective strategies rarely shift from film to film.

If you've seen one Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne film, you know what to expect here.  Handheld cameras track Cyril's every movement, watching him struggle against the circumstances he's been handed.  The worldview on display is bleak but doesn't rule out the possibility of redemption.  Moments of kindness temper the more tragic aspects of the story but, as in everything else in their filmography, the brothers persistently resist the urge to deal in sentimentality. 

Given that their best film, Rosetta, has fallen out of print on dvd in the U.S., newcomers to the Dardennes could do a lot worse than to become acquainted to their essential work via The Kid With a Bike.  Those already initiated in the Belgian masters' oeuvre will find much to celebrate here, too.

The Kid With a Bike begins its run at the Living Room Theaters on Fri., March 30th.  More info available here. 



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If you missed BULLHEAD at PIFF...

I already reviewed the Oscar-nominated, Belgian crime film Bullhead when it played at the 35th annual Portland International Film Festival earlier this month.  If you didn't catch it there, you've got another chance, as it begins its regular PDX theatrical run tonight at The Hollywood Theatre.

If there's any justice in this world, Bullhead will take home the trophy for best foreign language film next Sunday (although I suspect a much safer film will do so).  Either way, go see this movie!  Hit the link to see what I had to say about it a couple of weeks ago.

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PIFF 35 Preview: BULLHEAD

The organized crime genre is a pretty crowded field but I'm fairly certain that Bullhead is the only film I've ever seen centered on the Flemish mafia.  Directed by Michael R. Roskam, Bullhead doesn't romanticize it's characters or their trade; these mobsters deal in bovine growth hormone, forcing the local ranchers and farmers of the Belgian countryside to produce "their cows."  The film begins just as a police investigator has been killed on the order of a crime boss.

If the crime angle is the wide view of the story, the close-in perspective lies with Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts), a mountain of man whose own daily use of steroids and hormone treatment therapy darkly parallels the business in which he is an enforcer.  Roskam slowly paints the details of Jacky's back story, showing us how a young child of promise was turned into a man who intimidates for a living.  Schoenaerts plays Jackie as a maladjusted child in a giant's body, aching with loss, unable to connect with others, and placed into dire circumstances where he stands to lose everything.

This is a gritty, excellent character piece masquerading as a crime thriller.  The majority of Belgian cinema I've encountered has been inspired either by the Dardenne brothers or the wry comedy of Finland's Aki Kaurismäki (Eldorado or Aaltra are examples of the latter's influence).  In this regard, Bullhead feels fresh and without precedent in the realm of Belgian imports; its nearest comparisons in tone being Steve McQueen's Hunger or David Michôd's Animal Kingdom.  It's a fascinating and disturbing ride, well worth the price of admission.

Bullhead will screen for the public at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 11th at 12:30pm.  A second screening is scheduled on Feb. 14th at the Whitsell Auditorium at 8:45pm.

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ILLEGAL: Doing Time in Belgium

Having my recent experiences with Belgian films mostly confined to bittersweet comedies like Eldorado, I was somewhat unprepared for the unyielding bleakness of Olivier Masset-Depasse's Illégal, a film more in line with the emotional terrain of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's oeuvre than with the absurd humor of a work like Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine's Aaltra.

Winner of the Prix SACD at the 2010 Director's Fortnight at Cannes, Illégal highlights the plight of Tania (Anne Coesens), a woman who has fled Russia with her adolescent son in tow, seeking a better life in Belgium.  Their actual experience in this newly adopted homeland is far from ideal, as an overwhelming paranoia about discovery and deportation by the authorities becomes a part of their daily lives.  Early on, when the plot takes the expected turn and Tania is caught, she's separated from her son and thrown into a detainment center that resembles nothing less than a prison.

Massat-Depasse makes use of the fictional scenario as an opportunity to frankly discuss the real life treatment of illegal immigrants in contemporary Belgian society.  Tania and her fellow inmates undergo extreme physical and mental abuse both within the walls of the holding station and, especially, when forced to participate in repeated "deportation rituals" designed to shake loose a confession from those inmates withholding the basic information required by the government to enact a legal deportation process.

The film's grim story is well supported by the omnipresent gray tones mixed into the color palette of its cinematography.  The overall look of the film is a bit washed out but that, along with the use of hand held cameras throughout, helps forward the notion that we're peering into a reality lived by the dispossessed around the world, since the narrative is easily transposed to multiple nations whose actions surrounding illegal immigration are dubious at best.

As much as this sounds like an intellectual exercise on the part of the filmmakers, Coesens' powerfully nuanced performance as Tania is what keeps the movie from flying off the tracks and devolving into a formulaic message piece.  Watching as Tania agonizingly yearns for a reunion with her son, despite full knowledge of all the obstacles conspiring to keep that from occurring, is to witness a performance so grounded in character and realistic motivation that it actually inspires a belief in the viewer that, if sheer will were enough, Tania just might overcome her circumstances.


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Portland International Film Fest preview day 5: CERTIFIED COPY & IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE

I'm not even going to bother pretending that Friday's press screenings for PIFF need much vetting, since the festival programmers saved two of the most critically acclaimed films at the fest for the end of the week.  Along with Monday's screening of Silent Souls from Russia, If I Want to Whistle I Whistle and Certified Copy were the finest features of the week.  Whereas viewing the previous day's screenings had felt a bit like doing homework, Friday's films were an absolute joy to watch.

Florin Serban's If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle peers deeply into the world of Silviu, a teenage inmate at a juvenile detention center in the Romanian countryside.  Two weeks before he is to be released from the institution, Silviu is visited by his younger brother, who informs him that their mother has returned and has plans to abscond to Italy in one week with the younger brother in tow.  Being the damaged product of his mother's care, Silviu is shaken by this news and enters into an unsteady campaign to prevent their mother from realizing her intentions.

Romanian films aren't exactly known for their light and airy approaches to narrative and this one doesn't stray at all from that preconception.  Serban's camera places Silviu in an emotionally unforgiving and cold terrain that owes a debt of influence to the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Rosetta, La Promesse).  Like those Belgian filmmakers, the director abstains from the use of unnecessary exposition to tell his story, preferring to observe behavior rather than explain it.  It's a strategy that pays off in dividends, as we are placed intimately into the spaces occupied by the young protagonist and forced to grapple with his frustrations and decisions.  If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle is a great film by an emerging talent.

If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle plays at the Broadway Theater on Feb. 11th at 7pm, Feb. 12th at 5:15pm and Feb. 15th at 9pm.

Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Ten, Close-Up) is without debate an established master in the contemporary cinematic canon, celebrated critically and at film festivals the world round.  Which, unfortunately, doesn't translate to most of his films being very accessible to the majority of film goers.  Experimental documentaries and narratives set almost entirely in automobiles apparently don't thrill the masses, regardless of how many film geeks gush at the mere mention of Kiarostami's name.  His new film, Certified Copy, starring French film star Juliette Binoche (who won the best actress award at Cannes for this performance) and the world-renowned opera baritone William Shimell, has more potential to draw in new viewers to Kiarostami's work than any of his films since the much loved 1997 feature, Taste of Cherry.

Which is not to say that Certified Copy is without its own experimental devices, as the film certainly blurs its narrative into an exercise wherein reality takes on the shape of the ideas being debated by the characters.  However, these unorthodox narrative tendencies are made entirely palatable by the sheer loveliness of the performances, the lush look of the film and the tireless wit of the screenplay.  I won't bother with describing the actual story, as it's best encountered freshly and without preformed notions about its plot.

At this point, there's still another two weeks (and twenty films) left in the PIFF press screening schedule.  For now, I declare Certified Copy the one to beat.

Certified Copy plays at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 12th at 3pm and Feb. 14th at 8:45pm.