L'Enfant

Very Bressonian. Attention to detail, characters doing mundane things, moral transformation and redemption. L'Enfant goes for more of a realist style though, with a lot of documentary-style shooting and no score. This movie also shares its central flaw with L'Argent in that it hinges on the main character performing an extreme act, one that we're not convinced he would actually do. Besides that it's a very good film that effortlessly gets you involved with the characters and their situation.

The very idea that there's an attempt to suggest some form of redemption is alarming to me. Didn't care for this and probably won't ever write a musical based on the plot. Probably.

Didn't understand what the hype was about till the last half hour. That moped chase scene and the ending were amazing. Bruno = dbag

Bruno, a small-time thief living in Belgium's rust belt, casually sells his newborn on the black market, convinced he and the child's mother can easily make another. Is Bruno an unregenerate sociopath, or is he merely a young man desensitized by poverty, a selfish "child" living completely in the now, who nevertheless has the potential of achieving responsibility and redemption? This film makes us watch Bruno with interest--if not sympathy--and care about these questions and his fate.

The treatment of the incredibly annoying Bruno is so non-judgmental, so honest and precise that he somehow becomes an intruiging character that i'm slowly starting to understand through the following of his actions. Renier acts out inner dialog (though it's debatable to be for sure to what extent he has it) with 10s shots of just his face and the directors have this confidence in him and the audience that we're there with him. Premium masterclass show don't tell with an exhilarating ending

Nice little film. It clearly invites comparison to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (or Bresson's Pickpocket). Bruno, in contrast to Raskolnikov (or Michel), is not a philosopher-criminal, but a sort of brute (perhaps too obviously highlighted by his name?) that happens to commit crimes for a living. The film leaves us pondering what this implies for his redemption. One might also wonder who the titular "child" is. The baby? Bruno? Sonia (a name lifted directly from Dostoevsky)?

The performances are excellent, the pivotal scene, though moronic, is executed extremely well, the film has powerful moments that might have floored me if I gave a toss about Bruno after his decision and a chase scene is subtly suspenseful. Still the profoundly stupid decision Bruno made coloured every moment after it. I just can't trust a script that makes a character perform an action that was so overwhelmingly, astonishingly contrived and fake, and the naturalism only served to emphasise it.

Realistic portrayal of a life I have no experience with. The acting from the young leads is superb and I love the way the film unfolds in a matter of fact way, making you pose your own questions and make up your own answers to the underlying motivations in the film.

bruno is STOOPS. wat tha hell.

Watching Dardennemovies feels like coming the closest to someone elses internal conflicts as I can in a piece of art. The complexity and uniqueness of a specific individual in a specific place has so many angles and there are so many possible cliche's and fashionable figures of speech that end up in movies, that there are usually some elements that don't fit in to that specificity. With Dardenne, this is not the case: what you see is 100% that individual in that situation. Virtuose!

Somewhat engaging and affecting, at times even gripping, in its downbeat neo-neo-realist way, this poses its questions with a certain amount of subtlety, although the mechanism by which it does so is ultimately, perhaps, a fairly conventional and familiar attempt to stage a collision between "moral" and "sociological" perspectives on the behaviour of the downtrodden.

This isn't as good a film as Rosetta partly because it is too derivative of Pickpocket (whereas Rosetta was only somewhat derivative of Mouchette) and party because it relies a little too heavily on a somewhat implausible act by Bruno. However, it still succeeds in being quite a moving film.

80.500

I had a hard time getting into this movie because its familiar realist trappings make it seem sterile rather than human. The ending had an undeniable power to it, but I wasn't moved by much else. Nicely constructed, though.

Not as compelling as I expected it to be - I'm a lover of low-key, but this didn't always keep me as enthused as I'd hoped. Still, at its heart it's a powerful story, and it's acted beautifully, even if I found the characters difficult to invest in, from any angle.

Genç yaşında çocuk sahibi olmuş çiftin hala çocuk olduklarını temelde işleyen Dardenne klasiği.Avrupa Sineması kesinlikle izlenilmeli...

Jeg er nødt til å se mer av Dardenne-brødrene. En fiksjonell realisme jeg aldri har sett maken til på film, med et kamera som aldri forholder seg til subjektene på noe annet vis enn det rent observerende. Fascinerende hvordan jeg på en og samme tid avskyr og føler med hovedpersonen, en fyr som i en dårligere film ville vært dømt nord og ned fra første scene. Potensiell politisk allegori over Belgias økonomiske situasjon? Må lese mer om dette. Bra.

The film slowly and steadily builds to a climax of staggering power. The Dardennes are truly masters of naturalistic and socially-charged storytelling.

End scene is like a remake of Bresson's "Pickpocket", a very strong humanistic movie.

belgien måste vara världens värsta land att bo i. inte bara marc dutroux utan alla människor där verkar vara utan moral, i alla fall i bröderna dardennes filmer. avsaknaden av känsloliv är påtaglig, även om det här går att spåra en utveckling under filmens gång. näe, det blir för mycket kallt observerande och för lite identifikationsmöjligheter för mig. filmen engagerar mig inte! men DÅLIG är den fortfarande inte.

L'Enfant has one of the least, if not the least sympathetic protagonist in any Dardenne film - which doesn't stop them from insinuating redemption, as they often do. Excellent work of realist drama.

sözden sonraki kesinlikle ne kral dardenne filmi diyorum başka bir yer demiyorum verdiği gerilim ve tony gatlif rahatlığı ve harika oyunculuklar da eklensin ve tabii ki motor sevgisi

I love how the Dardenne brothers explore the darkest side of a human being.

80 does not indicate 'not that hot'. Criticker doesn't know how to be a critic.

Minimalistic, but it does enough to pull you into the film.

L'Enfant shows choices and consequences, but it maintains an amount of impartiality, which I think is almost always the right way to do this sort of film. Stylistically the film has a rather typical but very effective "documentarian" style with lots of unflinching closeups, handheld camera and such. It's a bleak story, but a rewarding one.

The direct translation is "The Child" rather than "The Infant." That's because it's a matter of debate as to who precisely is the child in this affecting drama. It is to the credit of the Dardennes that we can understand Bruno's faulty motivation (the film conveys how the choice is so logical to him) and his surprise at the reaction his choice provokes, even as we, as viewers, are appalled by his actions. The movie is deeply felt, thoroughly thought out and directed with wise precision.

Bleak but relevent.

Incomprehensibly moving and authentic, constantly suggesting the vulnerability of it's characters. Stunning!

Very interesting story that should have a larger audience. Recommended.

Sean Penn, might be the greatest living actor, but Jérémie Rénier is greatest actor 'who is' living his character.

Minimalism can be a slam dunk for some films, but here, it makes the story fall flat. A couple of very good scenes, but it would have been quite a bit more compelling if the filmmakers actually tried more filmmaking.

Bruno as a character didn't really work for me, and as a consequence neither did the film.

A more expressive Pickpocket for a new generation.

A fantastic story that grows more than the trailer suggests. The grim, hand-held cinematography captures the grittiness of the couple's situation well. The story flows evenly with a strong pace. I personally loved the lack of soundtrack and dialogue, truly demonstrating the range of the actor's talents.

[read other's plot summaries] Perfectly toned, perfectly modern (post dogma), perfectly paced, un-melodramatic, immediate. There could be many definitions of 'what film should be', and this film is the PERFECT example of one definition (of what film should be)

"A miracle." - Ed Gonzalez

Man, Bruno is an asshole.

Another masterwork from the Dardennes. The camerawork mesmerizes and draws in the viewer, offering opportunity after opportunity to contemplate the internal struggles these people are enduring and the choices they are making. It's this style of showing what is unseen through intense and unflinching focus on the seen that makes these writer/directors so special. The final shot is exquisite in this regard, an uninterrupted look at brokenness and reaching out for comfort. Brilliant.

I think the Palme d'Or was a bit exaggerated -- Caché should've won it --, but this one proves that the Dardennes' physical narrative can fill up any story -- even this one, that most of the time looks conventional.

A fresh take on the spirit of the New Wave.