THE SON (Le fils)
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten New Yorker Films Directed by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne Written by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne Cast: Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 1/6/03
Just the other day an American professional man, an engineer, was found guilty of the sadistic murder of a young person. The jury recommended the death penalty, the judge to make the final decision. The victim's mother made a tearful plea to the judge to eschew compassion. In urging his honor to send the accused to the death house, she insisted that the crime was too brutal to deserve mercy. While many Americans agree that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent, they may at the same time believe that the victim's family deserves the closure that only the death penalty can provide. Does executing a killer bring any satisfaction to the aggrieved family of his victim?
While this question does not at first seem relevant to the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's film "The Son" (or "Le fils" in French), "The Son" is every bit about a family's anger towards one who murdered one of their own. Unfolding with a hand-held camera and the directors' traditional fly-on-the-wall convention, "The Son" focuses closely on Dardenne regular Olivier Gourmet in the role of Olivier, a man in his forties who supervises troubled teens, teaching them the trades of carpentry and welding in a shop subsidized presumably by the government. Olivier, who bears at least a slight resemblance to Chevy Chase, is wholly unlike the American comedian. Instead of pratfalls, Olivier barks orders to his charges with an unsmiling expression as though he were training American recruits on the way to the Gulf. Never a "please" or a "thank you" or the slightest hesitation in making his demands, Olivier appears respected by a similarly unsmiling and seemingly decent band of young men who are eager to follow his lead. The enclosed workaday world changes suddenly when Olivier is assigned a new lad, sixteen-year-old Francis (Morgan Marinne), giving him special attention to the horror of Olivier's ex- wife Magali (Isabella Soupart) who simply cannot comprehend why the man is giving so much time to a kid who brought tragedy to their home five years earlier.
The Dardenne brothers are an acquired taste, given their penchant for low-key camerawork, which could frustrate some viewers particularly since they concentrate about as much on the back of Olivier's head as on his facial expressions. To the filmmakers' credit, the audience does not require much time to gather that Olivier who represents the proud, professional working class (in that his trade requires a considerable knowledge of wood and the methods of molding it to human dimensions) is a bundle of repressed anger. In a more commercial movie, we'd expect his rage to come out in a big, final payoff, with nothing short of a murderous rampage to bring closure to his particular grievance. Instead, we are treated to a wholly character-driven, serious film that looks at its principal person's inner torments in a sophisticated manner, adding a patina of political commentary about the ethical views of at least one disturbed lad who believes he paid his debt to society by serving five years for murder, regretting only is that he was caught. Those who favor allegorical readings will see the presence of Christian charity, with Olivier as Jesus the carpenter.
Dardenne fans will see a straight line from their two previous films. In "La Promesse" made in 1996, a boy is raised by a father who exploits illegal immigrants in a matter-of-fact look at the man's son who faces a moral crossroads as he befriends one of the illegals. In their 1999 work "Rosetta," the Dardennes continue to use the cinema verite style to show a teen girl trying to escape the harshness of her life, a young woman whose emotional shell compares to that of Olivier in the current picture.
Pierre and Luc Dardenne could be compared to Robert Bresson, whose world is one of faces, hands, and detached views of human activity. As critic David Thomson in his new book states about Bresson (wherein he can be compared to the Dardennes) "human feelings are in turmoil with spiritual imperatives." If going within is an important food in your film-going diet, you won't be disappointed by "The Son."
Not Rated. 103 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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