Cannes 2005/ The Dardennes

The lineup for next month's Cannes Film Festival was announced this week, and while there are plenty of films to be excited about, the one that I'm most anticipating is a new film by the Dardenne brothers, L'Enfant. The always-authoritative imdb doesn't even have a reference to the film yet. I've just got to hope it shows up in North America sometime in the next year.

I've yet to see Rosetta, but both La Promesse and Le Fils were spellbinding meditations on the decision of a person to perform a morally good and humanly impossible act. When I last watched Le Fils twice in two nights a couple of months ago, I couldn't believe that the film's effect on me was steadily increasing in intensity, especially given what comprises the movie. The plot is simple: a lonely teacher of carpenters is given a new apprentice with whom he has a prior history. The technique is deceptively unadorned: a great number of the film's shots are by handheld camera taken over the protagonist's shoulder as he drives or works.

If you took out all the driving, measuring, hammering and staring, the movie could be cut down to about ten minutes of conventional narrative action. From that description, it sounds profoundly boring. Simply, the film convinces us that all of that which normally passes as filler in film or life is the stuff of real life. As much as anything else, and moreso than the typically "dramatic" moments we anticipate, the things we do out of routine, habit and duty give rise to who we are and how we approach our existence. Who among us makes difficult decisions in a moment of intercut montage, with knitted brow and musical accompaniment by Bernard Hermann? No, they come in the midst of a silent and ponderous five-minute drive, or while washing the dishes. That's the best way for me to explain the way in which the film creates an almost unbearable tension, in which the uncertainty of outcome creates an edge-of-your-seat effect to rival the best thrillers. What's more, I'm inclined to say that what comes out of all that narrative simplicity and repetition is something that, four viewings later, looks like perfection.

And I haven't even mentioned the film's accomplished and mature illustration of forgiveness. It may be one of the best and fullest Christian parables. Hell, Jim Hoberman says so. But despite its masterful incorporation of imagery and vocabulary that are historically and culturally identifiable as Christian, the film makes the most subtle and marginal use of those elements. The moment an allegory or parable folds into artless propaganda is the moment its characters become less than human and assume the form of simple cars moving along a narrative track. That's never been a temptation for the Dardennes; whether by virtue of their documentary roots or as a byproduct of their style or both, their characters are, if anything, too human. They stutter and pause and react unpredictably and erratically. In this world, God exists, but only in the details. Not in the literal character of the protagonist or the verbal professions of any of the characters. Instead, He shows up in the heart of a man who has no idea what he's doing, but can't find any other way to heal his broken heart.

So, yeah, bring on the next Dardenne film.

Hyperbole Self-Awareness Check: I'm aware that my last two entries have identified my two most-anticipated movies of the year as (1) a gorefest social commentary about beings who eat brains and (2) an austere, minimalist film likely to have no more than four characters and no nondiegetic music. That's not inconsistency. It's breadth.