The Child (2005)

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Movie
German title The child
Original title L'Enfant
Country of production Belgium and France
original language French
Publishing year 2005
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
script Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
production Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne and Denis Freyd
music no
camera Alain Marcoen
cut Marie-Hélène Dozo
occupation

The Child is a feature film by Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne from 2005 . The drama is based on an original screenplay by the brothers and was produced by the film studio Les Films du Fleuve .

action

Twenty-year-old Bruno and his two-year-old girlfriend Sonia live in dreary Seraing , a run-down Belgian industrial city not far from Liège . Responsible Bruno, who believes that work is only for assholes, makes a living as the boss of a children's gang. The young gang members get him car radios, handbags or jewelry. Bruno drives the moped with which he brings the prey and accomplices to safety. Bruno appraises the stolen goods and sells them for a profit. A businessman through and through, he also rents Sonia's little apartment and spends her welfare while she's pregnant in the hospital.

When Sonia Bruno gives birth to a child, the young father is unable to react emotionally. He doesn't even want to take little Jimmy in his arms. The young family moves into a homeless shelter and only a few days later Bruno seems to have gotten used to the baby and brings Jimmy home a brand new pram as a present. But Bruno doesn't want to grow into the role of a father. When Sonia queues in front of the social welfare office, he and Jimmy try to beg for some money from passers-by. Finally, Bruno makes contact with his fence woman and haggles with her over the price of his child. Both agree on five thousand euros and a little later the young father carries his son in his expensive motorcycle jacket to an abandoned house, the agreed meeting point for the deal. Bruno deposits his son in one of the empty apartments and waits in the next room until the strangers have carried the child out. Instead of the child, he finds an envelope with the agreed money.

When Bruno returns to his girlfriend, he tells the child's mother that he has sold Jimmy for five thousand euros. You could do a new one, he adds innocently. Sonia faints from shock , whereupon Bruno takes her to a hospital, where she is treated in the intensive care unit. Bruno begins to realize what he has done with his deed and sets out to fetch back the son he himself sold. Pulling the empty stroller behind him, he learns responsibility in a roundabout way, and he understands that there is more to be strived for than to sell goods for the highest possible purchase price. Bruno manages to buy Jimmy back, drawing the anger and beatings of the child traffickers. You ask him to pay another 5,000 euros. Since Bruno cannot raise the money immediately, he should work for her until the amount has been paid. Again he goes on a prey tour with a boy. After a pickpocket, the two are followed by a passer-by and Bruno finally has to watch the boy being arrested. Bruno's situation becomes hopeless. He has a hopeless debt with the stolen goods and Sonia doesn't want to have anything more to do with him. Finally he turns himself in to the police to help the boy. For the first time in his life he takes responsibility for his life and goes to prison. Sonia visits him in custody. They sit in silence across from each other, begin to cry uncontrollably and try to comfort each other.

History of origin

The child is based on an original script by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. a. Co-produced by arte France Cinéma and Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF). The directors got the idea for this film when, on their penultimate filming of The Son (2002), they witnessed a woman handling her stroller in an aggressive manner. The Dardennes couldn't get this picture out of their heads and wanted to tell the story of a young woman who wanted to find a father for her child under the working title The Girl with the Baby Carriage . Then the brothers came up with another idea - the story of a young father who has no father feelings.

The drama was shot in Seraing, a small industrial town near Liège, which is the location of all films by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne that come from the left-wing video movement of the 1970s . The production of the film, during which the two directors shot each shot an average of twenty times, cost according to Dardennes own estimates 3.5 million euros. To save money, the Belgians used the 16 mm film format and filmed with handheld cameras to save time . The child was filmed chronologically; this allowed the directors to view the material at certain intervals and decide which scenes needed to be re-filmed. The leading roles were cast with Jérémie Renier and Déborah François . For François, Das Kind marks the film debut on the big screen, while Renier had already played a role in the Dardenne film The Promise in 1996 as a 14-year-old . Fabrizio Rongione and Olivier Gourmet , who already worked with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne on the drama Rosetta in 1999, can also be seen in other roles .

reception

The film, in which the two Belgian directors strived for the greatest possible realism , as in their previous works , premiered on May 17, 2005 at the Cannes International Film Festival and received critical acclaim. Above all, the gripping narrative style and the realistic staging of the film as well as the acting performances of the two main actors Jérémie Renier and Déborah François were praised. Comparisons were made to the recent riots by young people in the French suburbs, as well as to Roman Polański's film adaptation of Charles Dickens ' famous work Oliver Twist , which was released in cinemas months later at Christmas 2005. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne themselves saw their drama as a study of personal irresponsibility. In Germany, Das Kind was awarded the title of particularly valuable by the Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden (FBW) .

In addition, Das Kind was selected as the official Belgian entry for a nomination at the Oscars 2006 in the category of Best Foreign Language Film . Until the five nominees were announced on January 31, 2006, the film competed with film productions from 57 countries, but could not compete against u. a. the French drama Merry Christmas by Christian Carion , Hany Abu-Assad's controversially discussed film Paradise Now and the German contribution Sophie Scholl - The Last Days by Marc Rothemund prevail.

Reviews

"Although this film doesn't show the slightest desire to be art, you have to be an artist to filter the content of such an image out of everyday life."

- Frankfurter Rundschau

“'L'enfant' is also a moral narrative, at the end of which there is the purification of the hero. When this hero is talking, he almost always lies, but he doesn't talk much. Bruno and Sonia walk or run on the narrow shoulder of the car streets, ride in buses, on the moped, the child always under their arm like a doll. Accompanying you is like an apparently aimless tour of violence through the fallow of civilization. "

- Berliner Zeitung

“'L'Enfant' won the Dardennes the second Golden Palm (after 'Rosetta') in Cannes because, despite its lack of decoration, it is grandly staged and played; Jérémie Regnier as Bruno has a bitter face that is relieved of the struggle for survival and in which dullness and vulnerability live. "

- The world

“Everything here should appear as authentic as possible, as if it could have happened in reality. Without affectation, makeup, false light. The fact that an unbelievable perfectionism reigns in this unaffected realism is revealed by individual grandiose scenes. "

- World on Sunday

“The Dardenne brothers approach their characters cautiously, keep backing away and avoid close-ups. As experienced documentary filmmakers, they watch the creepy nuclear family cautiously, without judgment. In doing so, they are far removed from any social and worker romanticism of Ken Loach . "

- Financial Times Germany

"[...] resistant faces, bitter, vulnerable, you get closer to them than rarely in the cinema."

- The daily mirror

“The film irresistibly draws the viewer into this emotional and moral maturation process. Initially, the camera romps carefree through the area with Bruno and Sonia, feverishly roams the streets with Bruno in search of the sold son, and at the end she carefully observes the couple's attempts at reconciliation. And when the two of them embrace crying in the last shot, the viewer feels the warmth they give each other almost physically. "

- The mirror

Remarks

  • The film's residents are almost exclusively amateur actors.
  • Originally, the film was supposed to be titled Der Vater (French: Le père ).
  • In Das Kind , the two directors used the colors very specifically. Bruno is almost always dressed in green, while Sonia always wears red. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne admitted that the colors play a major role in the decor, but they denied any symbolism.
  • During filming, most of the scenes were shot with real newborns. In the credits of the film you can read twenty-one actor names for the baby, who had to be changed over and over again during the filming as it got older.

Awards

The child was awarded the Palme d'Or in 2005 at the Cannes International Film Festival for best film. The award was presented by the American actors Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank, who two months earlier had been awarded the Oscars for their acting performances in Clint Eastwood's drama Million Dollar Baby . For Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne it was the second Golden Palm in Cannes, in 1999 they had already been awarded for the drama Rosetta . At the European Film Awards ceremony on December 3, 2005 , Das Kind was represented in the categories of Best Film and Best Actor, but was unable to prevail against Michael Hanekes Caché . At the 2006 Césars , the most important French film award, the drama was nominated in four categories, but could not prevail against the competition.

César

The film was nominated for the César 2006 in the categories:

  • Best movie
  • Best director
  • Best original script
  • Best Young Actress (Déborah François)

Further

literature

  • Dardenne, Luc, Dardenne, Jean-Pierre: Au dos de nos images (1991-2005) - suivi de Le fils et de L'enfant . Seuil, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-02-068651-1 .

Web links