The film I pick from last week’s watching is The Unknown Girl (2016) from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. It is about a young doctor named Jenny Davin who is thorough, dedicated and compassionate towards the mostly poor people who come to her practice. One evening, long after the opening hours have expired, the buzzer sounds and Jenny decides to ignore it. The day after a woman is found dead in the neighborhood and it appears to be the one who had called on the door of the doctor’s practice. 

The remainder of the film is about the attempts of Jenny, driven by moral decency and out of a sense of having failed her, to find out as much as she can about the unknown girl. The mystery of goodness is something the Dardenne brothers like to explore. In their world people do things to one another and the decent thing is not to shrug it off out of moral indifference. If we do, it will lead to an undesirable cruel and dishonest society. These filmmakers try to make us conscious about that and you can say that the Dardenne brothers, like Jenny in the Unknown Girl, try to do the right thing through their filmmaking.  

The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are the most prominent voices of cinematic realism today. Their trademark is fiction that quickly turns into an almost documentary feel of realism. Their films are occupied with hard social and economic realities, but also with issues of morality and meaning in the lives of individuals. The films usually have no happy endings and yet leave us with a ray of a hopeful new beginning. 

Sitting in on a masterclass with them about two years ago, they impressed me with their high degree of integrity in wanting to tell stories that really mattered to them. Ever since that day I have wanted to write a paragraph on their work with a strong recommendation of their films to our Nexus audience.

Whatever title you can get your hands on, it will be  very much worth watching. Since 1996 when they had their first international success with La Promesse, they have presented us with numerous award winning films with Rosetta in (1999) and The Child in (2005) as winners of the Palme d’Or in Cannes. 

If you are new to the Dardennes, you could start with Two Days, One Night (2014). Sandra (played by Marion Cotillard) is a factory-worker who is given notice at her job. She’s given a last chance to save her job if she can talk her workmates into giving up their annual bonus. She gets the weekend, ‘two days and one night’, to do this. She goes and visits them one by one. A moving, insightful two days and a night. 

The Kid With a Bike (2011) is maybe their most accessible and optimistic film, about a young boy abandoned by his father who by accident meets a woman who wants to help him. 

And when you are at it, keep going with The Son (2002), L’Enfant (2005), Rosetta (1999) and Lorna’s Silence (2008). Each film about people among the dispossessed in society, but the Dardenne brothers find beauty and redemption even in the worst circumstances. Watching their films may change the way you look at the world and your neighbours and may inspire you to a new resolve to care!

Rinus, June 2019

*Image & video posted for non commercial purposes
under 'fair use' of copyright material in recommendation of the film

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