l ' enfant ( film )
l' enfant (the child) opens today in new york and los angeles .
for other uses, see l' enfant prodigue (disambiguation) and the prodigal son (disambiguation) .
although
l' enfant
won the coveted palme d' or at the 2005 cannes film festival, it is a grossly disappointing movie .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing l' enfant near you .
tagged as david m. evans, film, first kid, francois truffaut, l' enfant sauvage, movies, sinbad, wild child, zachary ty bryan
trailer of' l' enfant' (' the child') by jean - pierre and luc dardenne, 2005. english subtitles. urltoken
into film recommend this film is engaging for this age range. please refer to the bbfc guidance for further help in your film choice .
magnifique... belgian brothers luc, left, and jean - pierre dardenne pose with the palme d' or trophy they won for their film l' enfant (the child), at the 58th international cannes film festival. photo: ap
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l' enfant
(
the child
) is rated r (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). the film has some rough language, but nothing that anyone over 10 hasn' t heard before .
l' enfant shows a world that remains under the radar for most people, yet proves that growing up - however long it takes - is anything but child' s play .
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no one is likely to leave l' enfant unaffected by the dardennes incisive exploration of the consequences of a world where some of its citizens have found a way to rationalize, and even ignore, what was if not unimaginable, at least unforgivable .
made in 1913 this film is so advanced in film technique, camera techniques and placement, character development and length (over two hours !) that it leaves my silent film director hero, d. w. griffith in the dust .
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chinese director wang xiaoshuai received the jury' s prize for his film shanghai dreams .
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the film is ironically gripped by the sort of ideological “vagueness” that karl marx dismisses throughout .
the brothers discuss the hot - button issues at the film’s center and their unique filmmaking approach .
four chapters based on the birth of a ‘secret child’, or a film, with chapter titles .
this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are. see what’s now showing
this highly - engaging film documents naturalist timothy treadwell' s ultimately fatal bond with the bears of alaska .
the greatness of the dardennes is that they allow us to realize that these are questions and leave us free to try to answer them. what happens at the end of the film perhaps suggests grief and a desire to repent. i hope it does. but
l' enfant
is not so simple as to believe that for bruno there can be a happy ending. here is a film where god does not intervene and the directors do not mistake themselves for god. it makes the solutions at the ends of other pictures seem like child' s play .
but let me just bluntly tell you what happens in the film, while observing that
l' enfant ,
more than almost any film i can think of, is not about plot development but about putting one foot in front of the other. we meet sonia and bruno. she has just borne his child. the baby in her arms, she finds bruno begging from cars at a traffic light while serving as a lookout for a burglary in progress. she shows him their child. he is as interested as if she had shown him her new phone card .
anonymous city, handheld camera, actors who scarcely seem to be acting: we may think we know where we are, more or less. this is surely the new wave by way of neo - realism, early truffaut chasing late rossellini. didn’t we get over this? how could a film in this vein, namely l’enfant, written and directed by luc and jean - pierre dardenne, win the palme d’or at cannes last year? to say nothing of the same prize won by their film rosetta, a venture in just the same vein, in 1999. ‘a gritty urban tale of a young couple living on the breadline in france’, the bbc says of l’enfant. belgium, as it happens, and more like the criminal fringe than the breadline. but gritty and urban are going to be part of almost anyone’s first impressions. grim, too. are we so nostalgic for the hard realities we imagine the movies have lost ?
the film also earned the best screenplay honour for the story written by guillermo arriaga, who penned 21 grams .
another terrific, ultra - realistic family drama fom the talented dardenne brothers, winner of cannes film fest top prize .
amrit nahata' s kissaa kursee kaa, the film which will never be released =
kissā kursī kā
.
we talk about the
point of view
of a film .
l' enfant
sees with the eye of god. the film has granted free will to its central character, bruno, and now it watches, intense but detached, to see how he will use it. bruno is so amoral, he doesn' t register the meaning of his actions. at first, his behavior is evil. he attempts repairs. whether he is redeemed is a good question. at the end, he is weeping, but he cannot weep forever, and he has a limited idea of how to survive and make a living .
title l' enfant de ma soeur genre film notes - contemp record (c 1932) by bach of orig cast .
faut savoir faire tous les métiers
( 78 / odéon (f) 250351) (production and recordings information) - from: show music on record by jack raymond - loc. natlib. smor. 1932 - 137 (digitalid) description film. contemp record (c 1932) by bach of orig cast .
faut savoir faire tous les métiers
( 78 / odéon (f) 250351) (production and recordings information). from: show music on record by jack raymond additional metadata formats metsxml record
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
we are currently screening the wizard of oz, profound film that it is, and the last film wall - e. it' s been rewarding observing the ks1 6 year olds run the gamut of emotions from wonder to sadness to joy .
this list collects every film from the starting list that became they shoot pictures don' t they' s 1000 greatest films. this…
observe particularly the camera strategy in the last half of the film. often when a hand - held camera follows a character, it feels subjective; we are invited to identify, as if the camera is a point of view we share with the character. in the passages after sonia faints in
l' enfant ,
the camera focuses so intensely on bruno that everything else seems peripheral vision. but it doesn' t
identify
with him, and it doesn' t represent his point of view. it watches to see what he will do .
patrick robertson, film facts, watson - guptill, 2001, p. 9. isbn 978 - 0 - 8230 - 7943 - 8 .
its win served the dardennes' their second cannes triumph, after they picked up the palme d' or in 1999 for their film rosetta .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
a little girl gets kidnapped. perret' s most famous film, and widely considered his masterpiece. not bad, but dragged at times for me .
, from his own three - act stage pantomime, the prodigal son. the film was basically an unmodified filmed record of his play. filmed at the
the ghastly straightforwardness of the proposition itself makes a thrilling start, but the complications that follow result in a film which rivals deliverance in terms of mounting tension .
the dardennes achieve their effects through an intense visual focus. they follow their characters as if their camera can look nowhere else. in
l' enfant ,
their gaze is upon bruno. they deliberately do not establish the newborn child as a character. unlike the equally powerful
tsotsi ,
their film doesn' t show bruno caring for the child. the child is simply something he carries, like loot or a video game. the movie also avoids the opportunity to develop sonia, except as her behavior responds to bruno' s. when she lets out a cry of grief and faints, this is not so much what she does as what bruno sees her do .
there is no score in this film, not even during the credits. the only music heard is a recording of the blue danube playing on a car stereo .
for the past decade, the belgian brothers jean - pierre and luc dardenne have been building one of the most passionately engaged bodies of work in contemporary cinema. characterized by an insistently moving camera, their films move fast even when the brothers do not. since the release of their breakthrough film
la promesse
in 1996, they have made just three other fiction titles :
rosetta ,
the son
and now
l' enfant
(
the child
), stories about men and women engaged in a struggle - - for money, shelter, a break in the fence, a way into the world - - that is inscribed on the very surface of their restlessly beautiful images .
ralph fiennes and penelope cruz, the stars of the closing film chromophobia, screened out of competition after the awards ceremony, were also present, as was french actor lambert wilson .
, or l' enfant, is an example of how cinema has the power to convince, to move and to compel with the fewest possible material resources. it is as gripping as any thriller, with the abrasive force of social - realist drama, and yet it is also unapologetically concerned with redemption - a theme that is just a style accessory in many movies, but is here absolutely authentic. it is a spiritual and even religious story, though religion of any sort is quite absent. in some scenes, it even had this unbeliever fearing for the lead character' s immortal soul .
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 81, based on 19 reviews, indicating
universal acclaim
.
the dardenne brothers are religious men, but their detached style is so munificent their films defy easy categorization; these works of art can just as easily be read as christian allegories or visions of socialist - humanist daring. indeed, every remarkable composition and movement in l’enfant exudes compassion and remorse, evoking a profound sense of transcendental, existential, spiritual, or emotional unease (take your pick, or take them all, because the brothers’ vision is nothing if not absolute), and its incredible, gut - punching finale—which follows what may be the most exciting and revelatory chase sequence the movies have seen in many moons—can be looked at as a male pieta or, more simply (but just as powerfully), an eruptive demonstration of a child finally becoming an adult. either way, the film is nothing short of a miracle .
the child, a belgian drama about a petty thief who sells his baby son, won the cannes film festival' s prestigious palme d' or on saturday at a red - carpet ceremony .
l’enfant opens on a shot of a young woman (déborah françois) with a baby coming up some stairs. she takes out a key and opens the door of what turns out to be her flat. two surprised and annoyed people, a man and a woman, are seen through the door. they explain they have rented the place for the weekend from bruno (jérémie renier) and slam the door in the young woman’s face. she bangs on the door. she knows what’s happened because she knows bruno, but she needs the charger for her mobile phone. the couple fling the charger out, and the young woman takes off .
why make a film about bruno? the same might be asked about raskolnikov. like robert bresson, whose
pickpocket
informs
l' enfant
and is itself a loose reworking of
crime and punishment ,
the dardennes are not interested in passing judgment on a grievously flawed character; that' s why god and hollywood were invented. since there is no moral ambiguity in the act of selling another human being, there would be no point in such judgment, other than to indulge in some self - satisfied finger - wagging. rather, what interests the dardennes - - what invests their work with such terrific urgency - - is not only how bruno became the kind of man who would sell a child as casually as a slab of beef, but also whether a man like this, having committed such a repellent offense, can find redemption .
l' enfant ,
which won the golden palm at cannes 2005, is the new film by the dardenne brothers, jean - pierre and luc, whose
the son
( 2002) made such an impact; audiences were moved in a deep, rare way. the dardennes do not make morality tales. their character bruno is not aware that what he does is good or bad. he is unformed. there is a scene where he and sonia tussle playfully in a car and then romp outside in a park like a couple of kids. does he love her? love is outside his emotional range. he takes money, spends it, doesn' t even cultivate the persona of a hustler. he is that most terrifying kind of human being, the one who doesn' t feel ordinary emotions or even understand that other people do .
musical show. orig prod. music: harold arlen. words: johnny mercer. cond: leon leonardi. cast: pearl bailey, harold nicholas, ruby hill, june hawkins, robert pope. (78 / cap album ce - 28; cap 10
l - 355; cd / angel zdm - 7 - 64662 - 2; ...
with their breakout hit la promesse, jean - pierre and luc dardenne cultivated a singularly exquisite ethical and emphatic view of the world adopted and extended by each and every one of their successive masterpieces: rossetta, the son, and now l’enfant. the verité aesthetic of these films is instantly recognizable and rooted in the brothers’ shared background in documentary filmmaking; the wobbly camera, back - of - the - head shots, oblique framing, and lack of mood music is its own artifice, but the cumulative emotional and spiritual affect of these films never feels premeditated. so innate is this style that the films appear to materialize out of thin air, and with each new project, the filmmakers appear to be daring us to find a single false note in their startling simulations of real life .
it also surprised many critics who had been tipping hidden, a subtle french film about western bias against arabs, as the leading movie in the race. that picture, by austrian director michael haneke, picked up a relatively minor stage direction award .
like the dardennes' other recent films ,
l' enfant
takes place in an industrial town far from the tourist cathedrals and squares. the story opens with sonia (déborah françois), a pretty young blonde with a newborn son, jimmy, in tow. dressed in a mini and boots, clutching the infant awkwardly in her arms like an unexpected gift, sonia is anxiously searching for the man we soon learn is her boyfriend, bruno (jérémie renier, the young hero of
la promesse
). when she finds him, he greets her warmly but barely registers the mewling bundle in her arms. for this penny - ante thief, who lives by his wits and willingly plays fagin to two very young accomplices, a baby, even one he sired, has no meaning because it serves no purpose .
in their film, the dardenne brothers make the point that terror takes many forms, including poverty, and you don' t have to travel to the middle east to pay witness to inhumanity or grace ,
new york times reviewer manohla dargis said .
l’enfant ’s swirling sense of moral chaos, sustained horror, and courage has not been seen since the son, which was also open to the possibility of good coming out of a world that can be relentless in its callousness. like the dardennes’ camera, bruno seems propelled by an innate mechanism beyond his control; he is keen only on self - preservation, oblivious to his role as a father. the dardennes help us to understand bruno’s helplessness, but they never abuse or toy with our sympathies. they may see bruno’s actions as the residual damage of a heartless social existence (a dog - eat - dog global market), but this bitter truth isn’t revealed to the audience with a guttersnipe’s sense of class, but with uncanny ease, and with the compassionate belief that the world, in spite of its merciless cruelty, is still possible of affecting good .
film. soundtrack. music: josef myrow. words: mack gordon. orch & cond: alfred newman. cast: dan dailey, betty grable, mona freeman, lee patrick, chick chandler, imogene lynch, connie marshall. (classic international filmusicals 3008, ...
tommy lee jones, who starred in hollywood blockbusters the fugitive and men in black, picked up the best acting award for his film directing debut, the three burials of melquiades estrada, a tough - as - nails tale about death and redemption in the border area between texas and mexico .
film. album (c 1947) by charles kullman of orig cast. music: nicolai rimsky - korsakov, arranged by miklos rozsa. words: jack brooks. cond: julius burger .
song of india ,
hymn to the sun ,
gypsy song ,
...
film. 1946 records by dick haymes of orig cast .
another night like this
( 78 / dec 23731, alb - 299, alb - 397 )
mi vida
( 78 / dec 23731, alb - 299) (production and recordings information). from: show music on record by ...
. the award' s jury made this statement about the film :
a well crafted narrative that explores the highs and lows of a complicated familial relationship with authentic performances, supported by grand cinematography, pulls you into the unfamiliar world of a childhood thief whose only constant is the love shared between him and his sister .
another way that first kid stands head and shoulders above truffaut’s film is in the use of montage. truffaut wasted a great deal of time trying to establish character, trying to establish a central theme and set of questions at the heart of the film. had he been a skilled filmmaker in the mold of david m. evans, he would’ve been much more efficient and cut all of that stuff out by simply showing it as part of a montage. we, the viewers, didn’t need to be bogged down by seeing sinbad and the president’s son becoming friends over several scenes. no, it was much more effective to cram it into 90 seconds of clips .
film. 1947 records by betty hutton of orig cast. music & words: frank loesser .
poppa, don' t preach to me
( 78 / cap 380, alb - 285, alb - 1014, alb - 1635, alb - 2123 )
the sewing machine ,
i wish i didn' t ...
film. records by danny kaye of orig cast .
anatole of paris
( 1942: alb - 70, alb - 107, alb - 518, alb - 1370, alb - 1567, alb - 1613, alb - 1825, alb - 1831, alb - 1974, alb - 2186) (1952: alb - 6, alb - 515 )
the little fiddle
( 1949: alb - 55) (production and ...
this film is ostensibly about a young girl being kidnapped and eventually recovered by her father, who the authorities mistakenly believe had died at war. but of course it is really about how greedy and poorly humans can treat each other. since there are few inter - title cards used the viewer must pay close attention to the screen, at times the pace of the plot moves along an amazing pace and can be tough to follow. but it is worth it .
a little later he takes the baby for a walk in the fancy new pram he has bought with his recently acquired money. he does a little begging just for fun, and then he has an idea. we know he has an idea, because he makes a phone call. in all of these movies, people act as soon as they think, and this is why the movies become so fast and ironic. the characters in l’enfant, as in la promesse and rosetta, are always busy, never at a loss. they have always already decided what to do, and are on their way to do it. that’s what we see, that’s what the films consist of: people on their way somewhere, not reflecting, not agonising, just getting on with it, whatever it is. there is just enough dialogue to clarify what’s happening, but the dialogue is an explanation, not part of a decision or a thought process. when the boy in la promesse makes his promise to look after an african immigrant and her child, we scarcely hear his words and the words scarcely matter. later, when he helps the woman to escape from his father, who’s running an illegal immigration scam, he says he can go against his father for her sake, but he can’t inform on him: ‘je ne suis pas d’accord avec mon père, mais je ne suis pas un mouchard. ’ he’s not looking for grace but he has found, and is acting on, a fragile but real sense of honour .
in each film, deeper philosophical soul - searching happens. is it acceptable to confine the child in wild child if freedom is all that he’s known? can such a child learn the nuances of moral order, justice, right and wrong? and is it ok to put fake dog poop on the ground at a presidential inauguration if it gets some laughs, as sinbad once did in first kid? robert guillaume would seem to think not, but i would disagree with the former star of benson .
another point in favor of first kid is in character development, which is driven home by the sharp, cutting wit, such as when taylor calls the president’s kid “the first wuss” (this tells us that the kid is not held in high esteem by his peers, and that the film was made when ‘wuss’ was still a socially acceptable word); or when sinbad keeps wearing wacky ties, which establishes for us that sinbad’s character shuns authority and also that he is wacky. truffaut failed in this regard .
it seems to me essential that we don’t know why bruno is crying, that we can’t moralise this ending into some comfortable stuff about remorse and learning a lesson and the value of human life. perhaps he’s crying because he’s sorry for himself. perhaps he’s just bewildered by the evaporation of his old ingenuity, by all the risk and fun running out when he thought they would go on for ever. sonia may be crying because bruno is, but she has plenty of other reasons too; and the only good explanation for any of these tears is the whole film we have just seen .
the heartstopping vulnerability of this tiny baby is almost unendurable throughout the film. in a world where the safety of children now exceeds almost every other ethical consideration, it is stomach - turningly scary to see sonia riding on the back of a motor - scooter clutching little jimmy to her chest. extended, wordless scenes of people riding on bikes and scooters are a cliched mainstay of a certain type of european arthouse cinema, yet this sensationally upsetting image gives it new life. it sums up the danger and the rootlessness of sonia' s existence; it conveys her inability to imagine the future, yet also her poignant faith that things will be all right .
the ambiguity and irony of the film' s title run further than this. bruno has a kind of parental role that he does take seriously; he is a fagin figure to a gaggle of schoolkids who snatch purses and pick pockets, and he sells the goods to a fence he meets in a bar. and it is this fence, a well - dressed woman, who asks him if he is happy to be a father and if he knows about the big money to be made in the adoption black market. so bruno one day casually volunteers to take beloved little jimmy off sonia' s hands for an innocuous
walk
- to meet his contact .
wonderfully subdued tale of a father' s (eventual) love. in many ways a latter day oliver twist, focusing more on the pickpocketing aspect. it shows how far people will go for money and how it can also blind their common sense. bruno may be a bit naive in his actions but unfortunately we never see the real bruno until the last few frames. he only does the right thing when pushed into it due to very harsh circumstances. it' s excellently shot, capturing the realistic harsh nature the film sets out to achieve. slow in some places and not so well developed in others it is for the most part a truly affecting tale that doesn' t sentimental .
few other questions - - how we live and whether our lives have meaning - - are as important, which is why it' s unsettling that few filmmakers bother to raise them. the dardennes started out making documentaries about strikes and factories, and that may help explain why they are so comfortable asking such basic questions. some of their critics are rather less comfortable with their subject matter, and it' s instructive that the brothers' work is often lumped under the rubric of the social - issue film, probably because their characters are working class or poor. implicit in this thinking is that poverty is strictly a social problem, an abstraction you read about in the papers or gingerly step over on the sidewalk, rather than a collective falling down on the job of being human .
i just didn' t feel enough for the main character to be that invested in his plight, especially considering he brought all of his drama on himself through his own actions. maybe that' s the point of it, but if i want to watch an idiot make stupid decisions that effect other people' s lives negatively, i' ll keep watching reality television. and here' s the other thing about italian neo - realism vs. the french style of the same thing (yeah, i' m getting all film schooly on your asses): at least the italians new how to frame. i get it, it' s part of the slice of life thing, but try the camera on the tripod once and see what it looks like. paris is too beautiful of a city to be seen of out focus .
the mobile phone is important as an image and an instrument. it allows the people in this film to make their dodgy deals and connections, and it also links them to their harebrained wishes, allows them to realise their first ideas without time for second thoughts. this is just what happens to bruno, master, as he imagines, of adventure and survival in the grubby modern city. the place we are in is the belgian steel town of seraing, near liège, recurring scene of the dardenne brothers’ movies. when people are not on the phone, it seems, they are on a bus, or whizzing around town on a moped. the high whine of the moped becomes something like the theme music of all these movies. heavy traffic, lorries and cars pounding across the screen, is another returning image. you begin to feel that just getting across the street is a deep skill, probably available only to people in their teens and early twenties .
these first impressions are not all wrong, and the dardenne brothers, belgian filmmakers who first received international notice with their devastating la promesse (1996), make no secret of their cinematic debts. they usually throw bresson into the mix, and critics seem to feel some mention of the brothers’ background in documentary film is obligatory. but they also have a background in theatre, which may help to explain why the first impressions don’t tell the whole story, and why one’s memories of the films make all quick and loose descriptions seem slightly off. the films turn out not to be grim, for example. their touch is too light for that, and the ironies too carefully managed. the characters don’t brood over their misery – they are too busy inventing the wrong solutions. the programme notes for a recent austrian season of the dardennes’ films say they are ‘not just precise portrayals of society, they are also fables about the struggle for grace. ’ this is a bit too theological but it’s a move in the right direction .
here follows the second long walking scene in the movie – the earlier one was bruno pushing the pram, first with and then without the baby, up and down the streets of seraing, past the shops, across a bridge, through the traffic. now bruno pushes his friend’s moped through a similar scene. the thing is heavy, and i seem to have missed the reason why he is not riding it. as ever, he has made up his mind and knows what he is doing. but we shan’t know what it is until he does it. in fact, bruno, like the boy in la promesse, has found a sense of honour he didn’t know he had, and is on his way to the police station, because he can’t let his juvenile friend take the rap alone. the movie ends with bruno in prison, and sonia visiting him. he asks how the baby is and sonia says he’s fine. they don’t have much to say to each other, and bruno starts to cry. sonia cries too, and the film is over .
bruno takes a while to get there. his idea, and the subject of his phone call, is obviously to sell the baby; and he does. the great scene in the movie occurs when he tells sonia about it. we expect some wily, picaresque explanation, another example of bruno’s talent for improvisation, but he just tells sonia the truth. partly, we imagine, because he likes her and doesn’t want to lie to her, and partly because he doesn’t think there’s a problem. we can have another one, he says: ‘on en fera un autre. ’ sonia passes out and he takes her to the hospital. the plot of the film becomes quite tricky at this point, and totally undoes any idea of simple documentary sequence or observation. sonia tells the hospital staff what bruno has done; he manages to get the baby back, but is still in trouble with the police. he talks his way out of that, but now owes the baby - dealing crooks for their ‘additional expenses’. sonia won’t talk to him, and throws him out of the flat. he gets one of his juvenile friends to snatch a purse for him, and both of them are pursued by respectable belgians eager to make a citizen’s arrest. bruno escapes, but they catch his friend .
movies and tv shows are certified fresh with a steady tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide - release movies, 40 for limited - release movies, 20 for tv shows), including 5 reviews from top critics .
the dardennes continue to excel at presenting works of rigorous naturalism, with detached observations of authentic characters that nevertheless resonate with complex moral issues .
unfolding in real time on the scruffy working - class streets of industrial belgium, this harrowingly intense odyssey charts bruno' s desperate search for redemption .
what is astonishing, and most admirable, is the way the filmmakers manage to create sympathy for this pathetic loser .
the dardennes have managed to concoct an engaging and often suspenseful drama without ever calling upon fancy camerawork, sensational performances, or even so much as a musical score .
touching, but it really makes no sense that a guy so crappy as to sell his baby would be such a good person in the end. i guess it says something about becoming an adult, but still... it' s about as abrupt a change as anakin skywalker turning to the dark side .
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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 .
lakeith stanfield and his sorry to bother you crew reveal their most soul - crushing jobs in our freewheeling interview .
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strange events happen in a small village in the north of germany during the years before world war i, which seem to be ritual punishment. who is responsible ?
young, unmarried couple sonia and bruno have just had a son, who sonia names jimmy. bruno, who did not visit her while she was in the hospital, scoffs at the notion of what he considers traditional employment, instead eking out a living primarily on petty crimes committed with his fourteen year old associate, steve. he even sublets sonia' s small apartment while she is in the hospital, he sleeping either in the homeless shelter or squatting in what he calls his
shack
down by the river. on the day after sonia gets out of the hospital, she allows bruno to take jimmy for a walk while she stands in line for her benefits. on that walk, bruno makes the unilateral decision to sell jimmy to a black market adoption agency. upon finding out what bruno has done, sonia has a breakdown and falls unconscious. fearing that sonia will turn him over to the police when she regains consciousness, bruno tries to get jimmy back while he leaves sonia in the hospital in her unconscious state. but bruno ...
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young, unmarried couple sonia and bruno have just had a son, who sonia names jimmy. bruno, who did not visit her while she was in the hospital, scoffs at the notion of what he considers traditional employment, instead eking out a living primarily on petty crimes committed with his fourteen year old associate, steve. he even sublets sonia' s small apartment while she is in the hospital, he sleeping either in the homeless shelter or squatting in what he calls his
shack
down by the river. on the day after sonia gets out of the hospital, she allows bruno to take jimmy for a walk while she stands in line for her benefits. on that walk, bruno makes the unilateral decision to sell jimmy to a black market adoption agency. upon finding out what bruno has done, sonia has a breakdown and falls unconscious. fearing that sonia will turn him over to the police when she regains consciousness, bruno tries to get jimmy back while he leaves sonia in the hospital in her unconscious state. but bruno will soon learn that regaining sonia' s trust will not be as simple as getting jimmy back. and he will also learn that getting jimmy back is not as easy as giving back the money .
bruno and sonia are boy friend and girl friend, playful, immature. she' s still in her teens; they chase each other, share cigarettes, spray sodas and wrestle. the thing is, they also have a new baby. just out of hospital, sonia seeks out bruno to bring him his son. bruno' s indifferent. in the grimy belgian city of seraing, he' s a petty thief with no interest in work, no plan, spending money as fast as he can fence cameras and jewelry. he sells the baby. sonia' s reaction and bruno' s surprise at her response inform his subsequent actions. the camera follows and observes him: has he a nascent conscience or any chance at redemption? can he help himself ?
when the single mother sonia returns home with her newborn son, she finds that the baby' s father bruno had rented her apartment for a couple. she seeks out bruno, who is a small time young thief that has a gang with two other teenagers, on the streets and they go to a shelter to stay during the cold night. on the next morning, they register the child with the name of jimmy. when bruno receives a proposal from his dealer for selling jimmy for adoption for five thousand euros, he steals the baby and sells him to his contact. however, when sonia discovers what bruno did, she faints, goes to the hospital and reports the transaction to the police. bruno calls off the transaction and retrieves jimmy, but has to pay to the dealers another five thousand euros, in the beginning of his descent to hell and final redemption .
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sonia just gave birth to jimmy, fathered by her boyfriend bruno, who feels jobs are for chumps and prefers to beg, borrow and steal his way to his next meal or wardrobe change. after one of his pawn brokers tells him how much people would pay for a baby, he figures it' d be a brilliant idea to sell their newborn son, and does (call it $ 5, 000; they never quite said). sonia comes looking for the boy, bruno tells her what he did, she passes out and he takes her to hospital, where she reports him. he rushes to buy back the baby, he does, but the guys inform him they lost twice as much in the deal, and he has to pay them back the other $ 5, 000. bummer. he gives the baby back to sonia, the cops have a word with him, and she' s not speaking to him. he and his 14 - year - old partner in crime steve steal a woman' s purse, but she screams and some men give chase; after an exhaustive chase, the cops find and arrest steve. bruno has a moment of conscience, and turns himself in to free steve. sonia visits him in jail, bruno cries, and that' s that .
bruno and sonia share an addiction to mobile phones, and this too is a part of their transient, uncommitted, provisional attitude to everything. the cellphone is a vital possession, the only possession that appears to mean anything, and a vital facilitator of their unmoored existence. one of the very first things sonia does is demand the return of her mobile phone charger from the people to whom bruno has illegally sub - let her welfare apartment. mobile phones are vitally important to making discreet contacts in the world of receiving stolen goods, and ultimately in the cloak - and - dagger world of black - market adoption. bruno has to use his cellphone to arrange a drop - off for his priceless merchandise without seeing his buyers' faces; the phone is a symbol of moral void, and makes possible an extraordinary scene in which the baby is left alone in a shabby room, and is then, through a horrible anti - miracle, revealed to have been transformed into a shameful wodge of euros. it reminded me, in reverse, of a novel i hadn' t picked up in years: george eliot' s silas marner, in which the miser' s savings are stolen and replaced with a baby .
the child has what many movies of all genres lack: a satisfying and ingenious ending. bruno' s desperate situation with jimmy leads him into a frantic criminal endeavour with one of his artful dodgers. the final scenes with the police and the authorities are subtly but profoundly moving: they show how it is possible for bruno, however incorrigible he appears, to change. even though his motives for doing this are ambiguous, the choice he makes and the price he has to pay are both very real. the child has nothing to do with miserablism, and everything to do with fine acting and transcendentally powerful, compassionate drama .
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once reunited, sonia and bruno retreat to their private bubble, laughing and teasing like the squawking, rambunctious, sexed - up teenagers they more or less are. everything else, including the inconvenience of sleeping in a homeless shelter (bruno subleased sonia' s apartment while she was having the baby) and the inconvenience of the preternaturally quiet infant in their distracted care, feels like an afterthought. and then, the next day, while sonia' s attention is directed elsewhere, bruno sells jimmy on the black market. with breathtaking deliberation, he places a few phone calls and after a long bus ride and a climb up some stairs to a vacant apartment, he exchanges his son for an envelope of cash. and then he saunters back to sonia with the empty stroller .
the dardennes know how to build a scene for maximum tension: you yearn to find out who bought jimmy, and whether his fate lies with a childless couple or an organ mill. but because they make moral thrillers, what matters isn' t only actions and events but their emotional, spiritual and psychological costs. the tragedy of
rosetta ,
for instance, isn' t that the title character is poor, but how poverty has made her an exile, separating her from the rest of the world. bruno' s outsider status initially seems more of a choice than rosetta' s .
only suckers work ,
he tells sonia, though his actual language skews more aggressively potent. with his sporty leather jacket and cigarette, hooded eyes and scheming, he might almost be mistaken for someone who' s the master of his life .
for bruno, jimmy has no meaning beyond what he brings on the market. but then, for most of the world, bruno has even less value. sonia loves him, though her passion seems more capricious and flighty than profound, and the two younger boys he uses for his larcenous schemes rely on him only for jobs, not meaningful companionship. but the support that these three provide is as flimsy a shelter for bruno as the cardboard box he sleeps in one night not long after selling his son. and it' s only after he racks up a debt to some local gangsters, who first beat him to the ground and then carefully tabulate his value down to the last cent, that bruno becomes truly valuable to another human being .
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l'enfant ( english : the child ) is a 2005 belgian film directed by jean-pierre and luc dardenne , starring jérémie renier and déborah françois . the film was released under its french title in the us , and as the child in the uk . it won the palme d'or at the 2005 cannes film festival . l'enfant also received positive reviews from critics , and went on the win other honours . in 2017 , the film was named the fourteenth " best film of the 21st century so far " by the new york times . 
l'enfant (english: the child) is a 2005 belgian film directed by jean-pierre and luc dardenne, starring jérémie renier and déborah françois. the film was released under its french title in the us, and as the child in the uk. it won the palme d'or at the 2005 cannes film festival. l'enfant also received positive reviews from critics, and went on the win other honours. in 2017, the film was named the fourteenth " best film of the 21st century so far " by the new york times.
l'enfant (english: the child) is a 2005 belgian film directed by jean-pierre and luc dardenne, starring jérémie renier and déborah françois. the film was released under its french title in the us, and as the child in the uk. it won the palme d'or at the 2005 cannes film festival. l'enfant also received positive reviews from critics, and went on the win other honours. in 2017, the film was named the fourteenth " best film of the 21st century so far " by the new york times.