The Son

The Son is a movie about forgiveness, and how the very act of forgiving propels you forward as a human being. And to not only forgive the person who took away your son, but to become a guardian, a teacher to that person is an act of grace. Olivier exhibits this grace throughout the movie, but it is a grace that is not evident by just watching him on a day to day basis. You have have to follow him, listen to him, be with him constantly and understand his circumstances to realize this. I suppose, in a way, that many people possess this grace, but its hard to find it in them if you can't follow them around with a camera. Olivier, on the surface, would not seem like a very interesting person if you saw him on the street, or worked with him on a daily basis, and the boy seems like a dolt, but this movie makes them so interesting, so compassionate, not as characters, but as real people. It teaches you to look beneath the surface of things, of human beings, and if you look hard enough, you'll find beauty everywhere.

The Son, the latest film from Jean and Luc Dardenne (La Promesse, Rosetta) challenges us to look at our capacity for forgiveness and, in the process, articulates what it means to be human. According to the directors, the film is about "The moral imagination or the capacity to put oneself in the place of another". Olivier (Olivier Gourmet), a lonely carpentry teacher at a vocational rehabilitation school in Belgium, is a stolid, ordinary looking, and inexpressive man. His eyes are hidden behind thick glasses and his back is protected by a support brace. His entire being seems to be "in permanent disequilibrium" but conveys a pent-up energy that seems ready to explode. Olivier has been separated from his wife Magali (Isabella Soupart) since their young son was murdered during a bungled robbery and the half-hearted way they interact indicate the mourning has not been completed. When Francis (Morgan Marinne), a 16-year old boy just released from reform school, appears at the workshop, Olivier, seems strangely obsessed with the youngster, at first rejecting then taking him on at the school.

Not much happens during the first half-hour. The focus is on the minutiae of the workplace, the techniques of woodworking, the source of lumber, precise measurements, how to hold and carry wood and so forth. The claustrophobic camera follows Olivier around the workshop, breathing down his neck, back, and ears, creating a disorienting rhythm of almost unbearable intensity. There is no soundtrack other than the hammers and electric saws. Olivier follows Francis around with his eyes and we suspect there may be something unusual going on. This is confirmed when Olivier secretly steals the keys to Francis' apartment and lies on his bed. Later he meets the boy at a fast food place and impresses him with his ability to gauge distances with his eye. He then invites Francis to join him on the weekend to pick up some wood at a mill about 40km away. There is little dialogue on the trip and the tension is palpable. When the boy asks Olivier to become his guardian, the teacher demands to know the reason why he was locked up for five years. Their arrival at the mill leads to an inevitable confrontation and a startling conclusion of profound beauty.

The acting in The Son was top notch.

Very demanding nuances were expected from the actors, especially in a movie thats so stripped of a leading musical score and filmed at such a deliberately halted pace. Thus must say the two male leads has successfully delivered performances which torched my views on what constitutes "good acting".

Overall, The Son piqued my interest enough to want to hunt down other Dardenne Bros pics. Being new to their works, the extremely voyueristic shots in this film revealed previously undetectable character depths, with such humanistic intuition, it was uncannily astonishing.

Pity the dizzying cinematography made me all tipsy(my seat was very much infront). The film could arguably have done with some judicious trimming as well. But that may be due to my comparatively lower tolerance for such glacial paced works. But agree with you'all that the abrupt end achieved the right note of hopefulness. Its openness was a very nice touch indeed.

To be fair, I think I would need more time to digest this film on tv. It is my belief that the wozzy nature of "handheld" flicks often play better in an intimate home setting than in a cinema, especially when viewed from unfavourable theatre vantage points like mine.

An acquired taste though The Son has been, I acknowledge its a very prized find. It at least has succeeded pointing me in a whole new direction of film appreciation.

`Rosetta', the previous movies made by the `brothers' - as Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are referred to in Belgium - was great. What makes `Le Fils' even more enthusiasting is that the authors have now reached a point of perfection where they can tell us a sophisticate story which deals with some of the most devastating feelings we could face; but still, they treat the subject with an amazing simplicity and humanity. I could only compare this movies with some pieces of music by Charlie Haden: essential.

How do you make a film to capture the mindset of a stalker; or of an uncertain individual, sizing up an unknown enemy? The Dardenne brothers' solution in this movie is to shoot almost the entire film over the shoulder of its principal protagonist, giving the audience the same view, the same sideways glances and stolen observations, as the character. It's effective, but it doesn't make this the easiest movie to watch: at times it feels that everything you want to see is deliberately left out of shot. A film about a pair of fairly non-communicative people, it also contains almost no expository dialogue, so we are left to guess what each of them are feeling from their actions: in fact, as well as being terse or even silent, the characters are arguably people who don't really know what to feel any more. The film is thus an effective look at the bleakness of life in extreme circumstances, but again, this doesn't make it easy to relate to. The unusual method does bring some dividends: at first, it one thinks this will be a movie about a pervert, a mistake that owes everything to clichéd thinking and nothing to surprising honesty the directors and cast bring to this movie. In a sense, it's a film about the possibility of revenge, but with a more awkward, truthful and ultimately humane take on this notion than any you are likely to find in Hollywood. It's an interesting film, therefore, and deserving of praise; but not particularly fun to see.