Tags :: Dardennes

REVIEW

The Unknown Girl (2017)

Jenny will do a lot of listening in the drama that follows. First, though, will come a moment when she does not listen — the only time in the film she ignores a bid for her attention, but that one time hangs over the rest of the film.

ARTICLE

The spiritually aware cinema of Jean‑Pierre and Luc Dardenne

The Dardennes’ films generally have redemptive arcs of some sort, or at least the hope of redemption — though there are no traditional happy endings, only hopeful new beginnings. Theologians ponder the mystery of evil; the Dardennes are intrigued by the mystery of goodness.

REVIEW

Two Days, One Night (2014)

It is about self-interest and empathy, practical necessities and moral choices. It’s about the importance of work and the ruthlessness of economics based purely on self-interest and competition. I can think of no film that more persuasively or powerfully illustrates in human terms what popes from Leo XIII to Francis have been talking about for over a century regarding the dangers of pure capitalism unrestrained by moral concerns.

REVIEW

The Kid With a Bike (2011)

Here is a film that will break your heart, fill it with hope and challenge you to say Yes to God and to your neighbor, all at once.

POST

The Kid with a Bike [video]

The Kid with a Bike in 60 seconds: My “Reel Faith” video review.

REVIEW

The Son (2002)

A tightly wound, middle-aged carpenter named Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) works with young boys at some sort of center. His inner life, his motives and emotions, aren’t revealed to us, and he doesn’t seem preoccupied with them himself. He wears a leather back brace, and has perhaps been injured at some point; and his work itself may be a similar sort of prop against some injury of his past.