L'enfant (2005)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Directors:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Luc Dardenne

Writers:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne (writer)
Luc Dardenne (writer)

Release Date:

14 September 2005 (Belgium)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.

Plot Keywords:

Baby | Thief | Redemption | Car Chase | France

Awards:

11 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Jérémie Renier	...	Bruno
Déborah François	...	Sonia
Jérémie Segard	...	Steve
Fabrizio Rongione	...	Jeune Bandit
Olivier Gourmet	...	Policier en civil
Anne Gerard	...	Commerçante (as Anne Gérard)
Bernard Marbaix	...	Commerçant
Jean-Claude Boniverd	...	Le Policier en civil
Frédéric Bodson	...	Bandit plus âgé
Marie-Rose Roland	...	Une infirmière
Leon Michaux	...	Policier Commissariat (as Léon Michaux)
Delphine Tomson	...	La fille aux cheveux rouges
Stéphane Marsin	...	Jeune Homme
Samuel De Ryck	...	Thomas
François Olivier	...	Remy

Also Known As:

The Child (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for brief language.

Runtime:

France:95 min | France:100 min | USA:100 min | Argentina:95 min

Country:

Belgium | France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:AL | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Belgium:KT | USA:R | Czech Republic:15 | Taiwan:GP | Sweden:11 | Singapore:PG | UK:12A | Australia:M | Finland:K-11 | Argentina:16 | Brazil:12 | Brazil:16 (Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival) | Hungary:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Hong Kong:IIA | South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

Seraing, Belgium

Company:

Les Films du Fleuve

Trivia:

There is no score or soundtrack in this film, not even in the final credits.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Smagsdommerne: (#3.17)" (2006)

Salt of the Earth

Like a Chekov short story, simple, spare, and POW, right to the gut.

The totally marginal, a petty thief and his welfare girlfriend, clutching that most vulnerable and pathetic of all creatures, a newborn, dodge the indifferent menace of malicious streets. And the father, a total scamp and immature airhead, is barely worthy of contempt. So how do you make a fine movie out of this?

The Dardennes have eked a specialized cinematic niche for themselves: Ascetic social realism, the moral dilemmas of the European lower rungs and blue collar, stripped of adornment, yet somehow universal.

Bruno doesn't bother visiting his girlfriend in the hospital while she's having his baby. She has a problem even finding him when she gets out. Without her knowledge, or permission, he sublets her apartment while she's in labor, and is sleeping under a bridge. The new family is homeless.

But they're children, urban peasants, hardly different from Hardy's. The scenes establishing their relationship, short, prompt, are brutally sweet.

Then he sells the baby.

That Bruno isn't capable of great complexity limits the film. Watching a dope screw up makes for a haphazard, at times dull, ride -- you think he deserves the worst, think the baby is better off without him. Still, a sure Dostoevskian compass guides his inchoate moral choices.

Though not as compelling or rich as "Rosetta" (my favorite) or "La Promesse" (the crowds' favorite), or nuanced as "Le Fils," I still urge you to hang in there. The final scene delivers.

PS. I WILL be seeing the next Dardennes' film, no question.

PPS. Bruno is in a sense an untouched, unformed, unsocialized tabla raza, yes, OK, an "enfant," the human animal, neither good nor bad. The movie delves into his inherent social, moral nature -- "Is man good or bad?" What a sophomoric, embarrassing question you reply, in these pseudohip times of ours. When he lifts the 14 year-old on his back out of the deathly frozen black river, the child groaning piteously in pain, it is a "Christian" moment. God Save Our Souls (and I'm not remotely Christian).