Darden brothers showed with the most simple hand-held lens and mainly medium and close-up shooting angles were all "disgraceful" characters who were always on the edge of morality, and even repeatedly violated the bottom line of the law. Robbery, selling babies, fake marriages, hiring illegal immigrants—the background reflects all kinds of social issues, but the real concern is individual fate: teenagers who lack fatherly love and go astray, street gangsters who don’t know how to take on the role of fathers, An immigrant woman who chooses to be silent in the face of sin in order to live a better life, a young girl who betrayed her only friend because of her livelihood.
No matter how calm the record is, there is still a sensational moment: in the last scene of "The Child", Bruno and Sonia are crying in the prison visitor room. But in fact, if you think about it carefully, the narrator's sympathy for the characters has long been revealed through fragments and details. The famous and representative work "Rosetta" is also my favorite among the seven films. I think it is better in terms of character description and details. Rosetta, who chose the former between "work" and "friends", is admirable because of her stubbornness and saddened by her situation. Because of drinking tap water for a long time, she curled up in a ball several times because of abdominal pain. The only way to relieve the pain was to use the warm air of a hairdryer. In the film, a close-up of her face while lying flat and blowing her stomach is impressive. There is another episode that moves the audience: Rosetta chases her mother, but is thrown into the river, trying to break free from the silt, crying for her mother who is far away.
To a certain extent, the landmark work of "Rosetta" also seems to have provided "reference" elements for the brothers' subsequent films. In "Children", Bruno, desperate to avoid the police after the robbery, took his friends and jumped into the cold and dirty river. On the stool, he muttered to the "child" in his belly. (Corresponding to Rosetta's bedtime speech the night he stayed at Riquet's house) Cyril's stubbornness in "The Bicycle Boy" is exactly the same as Rosetta's. "Two Days and One Night" simply returned to the theme of "doing everything for work", which finally gave people an excuse for the brothers' aesthetic fatigue. (Indeed, "Two Days and One Night" is the one that disappointed me a bit. Personally, I think the story is too bland, while the other one I don't like so much is "Lorna's Silence". The heroine "repents" in the second half of the film. The mental journey is less convincing to me.)
Also experiencing physical pain is Olivier, the woodworker in "The Son" who suffers from chronic back pain. This is magnified in the scene where he directs a few apprentices to carry boards and climb ladders. The overwhelmed new apprentice Francis sat down on Olivier's shoulder under the ladder. A burst of pain and unexpected contact made him fall to the ground in a panic. After the accident, he regained his majesty, who had not recovered from his breathing, and asked the boy on the ground to stand up and complete the action just now. This middle-aged man, who has not yet recovered from the loss of his son, guides and takes care of his apprentice like a strict elder (just after the scene of climbing the ladder, he finds a man who is not working because his mother prevents him from going to work). apprentice, told him to make independent decisions for his own life), even for the teenager who killed his own flesh and blood, he still continued the role of father.
Father and Son
Under the numerous medium and close-up shots of "Son", the taciturn and unsmiling Olivier Gourmet uses his eyes to show inner struggle, hatred and kindness. Another thing that impressed me about the film was the several runs of the protagonist. In the two times that Francis was observed secretly, he fled in embarrassment. After an embarrassing meeting with his ex-wife, he suddenly rushed downstairs, wanting to know why God made him face painful memories again on this day. Another time, in a factory parking lot, he grabbed a thermos from his car and ran anxiously to appease his fainted ex-wife.
I have to mention, of course, the five-minute chase at the end of the film. From the lumber yard to the woods, from rational exhortation, subconscious hatred, to silent letting go, some people joked that the brothers could almost go to action movies. Several films, ranging from petty play (Bruno and Sonia's child-like fighting style), to vexatious (Rosetta gave Riquet a "disappearance" when they met for the second time), to real swords (Cyril for the sake of Going out and scrambling, and scratching Samantha with scissors), proved their "potential" in this regard. If the brothers had the word "docile" in their character dictionary, their movies wouldn't have looked so good.
In addition to Belgian actor Fabrizio Rongione, who has collaborated five times, and Olivier Gourmet, who has appeared in all seven productions since "The Promise," the brothers' other royal actor is Jérémie Renier, who made his screen debut in "The Promise." In the film, 15-year-old Igo, who betrayed his father in order to keep his promise to protect the West African woman Assita, became Bruno, the young father who sold his newborn child for money in "Children" nine years later. There is a set of scenes in "Children" where background sounds are shown from Bruno's point of view. When he sold the child with Sonia on his back, he stood in an empty room and listened to the footsteps of the child in the next room after being carried away. When redeeming the child, he stood in a hole in the ground and asked the other party twice if he had brought the child, but did not hear back. In the last scene of the prison visit, when Sonya walked to the vending machine, the camera stopped on Bruno's hesitant and remorseful face. Then, for the first time, the father asked, "Is little Jimmy okay?" The
human touch
changed from "Promise" to In "Two Days and One Night", the protagonists of each film are at war with life, but they are not alone. The human touch of the Darden brothers is what moved me the most in their films. Cyril lying on the bed said to Samantha, "Your breath is hot", the female barber used her patience, persistence and motherhood to finally let the teenager get lost. Egg used a crying hug and company all the way, in exchange for growth and Assita's gratitude. Francis asks Olivier if he'd like to be his custodian, which is by no means merciless irony, but more reason to dismantle the hatred. For Lorna, who is chasing a new life in Western Europe, living under the same roof for a few months means that Chloe, the fake husband, can no longer be just part of a ruthless deal.
At the end of "Rosetta", Riquet used tolerance to pull up Rosetta, who was crying uncontrollably on the gas tank, and at the same time saved her life. The camera was finally fixed on the girl's side face. This ending is the most classic case of Dardenette's abrupt end, and the brothers can always make the story end just right. Aside from cathartic endings like "Rosetta" and "The Child," several of the other protagonists choose to tell the truth (Olivier tells Francis that he is the father of the boy he strangled five years ago). , Egg confessed to Assita about the tragic death of her husband), or ushered in a rebirth (Lorna, who ran into the forest, started a night of life in the cabin in the woods, and Cyril woke up after falling from a tree. Get on a bicycle and move on, Sandra smiles as she walks out of the factory in "Two Days and One Night", turning a new page in her life).
View more about Rosetta reviews
