Lorna's Silence (2008)

Sokol and Lorna, two Albanian emigrants in Belgium, dream of leaving their dreary jobs to set up a snack bar. They need money, and a permanent resident status. Claudy is a junkie - he needs... See full summary »

Directors:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Writers:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne (as Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne), Luc Dardenne (as Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne)

Stars:

Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione

3 wins & 11 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Arta Dobroshi	...	Lorna
Jérémie Renier	...	Claudy Moreau
Fabrizio Rongione	...	Fabio
Alban Ukaj	...	Sokol
Morgan Marinne	...	Spirou
Olivier Gourmet	...	L'inspecteur
Anton Yakovlev	...	Andrei
Grigori Manoukov	...	Kostia
Mireille Bailly	...	Monique Sobel
Stéphanie Gob	...	Nurse
Laurent Caron	...	Commissaire
Baptiste Somin	...	Morgue Attendant
Alexandre Trocky	...	Doctor
Cédric Lenoir	...	Bank Attendant
Cécile Boland	...	Female Doctor

Storyline

Sokol and Lorna, two Albanian emigrants in Belgium, dream of leaving their dreary jobs to set up a snack bar. They need money, and a permanent resident status. Claudy is a junkie - he needs money to satisfy his addiction. Andrei, the cigarette smuggler, must hold up for a while outside Russia; he has loads of money. Fabio, the Italian taxi driver and aspiring gang boss, elaborates a clever scheme: he will pay Claudy to marry Lorna so that she acquires a Belgian citizenship. Then she is to re-marry Andrei, who will in this way obtain the coveted EU passport - and pay a hefty price to Fabio and Lorna for the service. Like all plans, this one will not survive the contact with reality.

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Plot Keywords:

belgium | woman undressing | nudity | female full frontal nudity | character name in title | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for brief sexuality/nudity, and language

Details

Official Sites:

Diaphana [France] Official site [Japan]

Country:

Belgium France Italy Germany

Language:

French Albanian Russian

Release Date:

27 August 2008 (Belgium)

Also Known As:

Lorna's Silence

Filming Locations:

Seraing, Liège, Wallonia, Belgium

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$34,411, 2 August 2009

Gross USA:

$338,795

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$5,123,676

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Films du Fleuve, Archipel 35, Lucky Red

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Before being cast as Lorna, the only words Arta Dobroshi knew in French were the days of the week.

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: The Lovely Bones/The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus/The White Ribbon (2010)

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Soundtracks

Since You're Back In Town
By The Dinky Toys

User Reviews

Another superb film by the Dardenne Brothers

The Belgian film "Le silence de Lorna" was shown with the title "Lorna's Silence" (2008) in the U.S. The movie is co-written and co-directed by the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

The protagonist, Lorna, who is from Albania, has made a pact with the devil. It involves her marriage of convenience to a Belgian citizen, so that she can become a Belgian citizen. Once she becomes a citizen, the plan is to remove her husband. Then, in another marriage of convenience, Lorna, as a widow, can marry a Russian who in turn will become a Belgian citizen. Lorna wants to become a citizen so that she can obtain a loan to open a snack shop in Belgium. She wants the cash for startup money.

The plot is crafted by a Belgian cabdriver, who has no compunction about doing whatever it takes to move up in the gangster world. If Lorna's husband, a drug addict, has to be eliminated, that's not a problem.

So, everyone has dreams--of cash, of a snack shop, of citizenship, of underworld advancement.

The problem is that the drug addict, Claudy, is obviously in love with Lorna, and he's desperately trying to stay clean. Lorna has sympathy for this needy, suffering young man, and she'd like to adjust the pact with the devil to somehow spare him. However, what she learns is that the devil doesn't like people who want to change the pact.

Arta Dobroshi, as Lorna is, indeed, from the Balkans. (So, it's not a stretch for French speakers to accept her authentic accent.) Ms. Dobroshi is a superb actor, and gives a brilliant performance as a woman who is basically decent, but finds herself in a less-than-decent situation.

Jérémie Renier is excellent as her husband, Claudy. My wife and I admired his work before in another Dardenne brothers film--"La Promesse." It's really easy for Claudy to slip back into addiction, and it's really hard to stay clean, but he can do it if Lorna helps him.

The Dardenne brothers specialize in films where bad things happen, often to good people. The curator who introduced the film said that the Dardenes specialize in films that offer no hope, but I don't fully agree. They specialize in hard films where tragedy is never far away, but the films do hold out hope for redemption. This is not always enough, but it's better than nothing.

We saw the film on the large screen at the excellent Dryden Theatre in George Eastman House in Rochester. However, it should work well on DVD.