Dheepan

Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed during 2015 AFI FEST.

"Dheepan," is the latest work by director Jacques Audiard. Audiard has to his credits the critically acclaimed and well nominated films "Rust and Bone"(2012), and "A Prophet"(2009). "Dheepan," is written by Audiard, Thomas Bidegain and Noe Debre', and tells the story of a Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger, called Dheepan. Dheepan is played by Indian actor, Antonythasan Jesuthasan.

Winner of the coveted Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, "Deephan," is a visual feast beginning in the jungles of Sri Lanka and the ensuing shots depicting Dheepan's cultural transformation in the night streets of Paris. Epinine Momenceau provides the cinematography in a compelling manner along with a nicely done soundtrack by Nicolas Jarr.

As the film opens we see Dheepan and fellow Tamil warriors placing dry palm branches over a funeral pyre. Dheepan place his military fatigues on top and lights the fire. Sri Lanka is mired in a bloody civil war. Dheepan along with an unknown woman called Yalini, played by Kalieaswari Srinivasan, and a young orphan girl, Illayaal, played by Claudine Vinasithamby, decide to flee the strife together and set out for a new life in the suburbs of Paris posing as a displaced refugee family. With the inventiveness of a well versed interpreter, Dheepan and Yalini pass their social services interview and find employment as caretakers of a not so well-to-do housing project and one of it's incoherent inhabitants.To complicate matters, Illayaal is having difficulties at school, Dheepan is contacted by a Tamil warrior who insists Dheepan continue the fight for freedom, and Yalini is becoming attracted to the gang leader nephew of her incoherent charge. This is all on top of the deeper humanistic component of three strangers living together as a family in a small apartment in an entirely foreign culture.

Soon, however, Dheepan and his refugee family begin to pull together as they experience renewed forms of violence. Their challenging suburban life becomes increasingly dangerous due to drug activity and an ensuing turf war that hits too close to home. Dheepan, working primarily as an janitor, takes a stand and declares a no-fire zone between his apartment building and the adjacent housing project much to the disbelief and chagrin of the well-armed gang members. As the turf war breaks out and spills over into the "safe zone," Dheepan shifts gears and his switch is flipped. He becomes an uber-soldier defending and protecting what has become his. This is an extraordinary transformation as he resorts to survival skills presumably developed as a Tamil freedom fighter. The action sequences heightens the drama in its fragmented and rather hazy segments as Dheepan's deep and powerful emotional chords propel him through the violence and chaos until victory is his.

All in all, I found "Dheepan," to be a very moving film with its riveting action sequences contrasting with its earlier tender, more human sequences. Audiard takes a very timely topic, the displaced refugee, and embodies him and her, with very human characteristics. Highly Recommended.

From the ashes of the Sri Lankan war a trio of strangers forms a family. It is an act. It is a passport across borders that none of them could get by as easily on their own. They are all orphans; man, woman and girl. Each of them has lost everything and everyone. Selling trinkets on the streets, learning new languages, understanding foreign cultures, realizing the ropes in a crime ridden housing project and avoiding warring factions are only some of the hoops they must jump through in their new home in order to survive. Adjusting to a new world is difficult, yet a greater metamorphosis is required inside each person. To make things work each must believe in the fiction of the family. Fluid identities must be embraced.

The toughest thing is learning to live with each other. For each adult it is like having two kids to deal with; teenager and spouse are equally petulant. It is not merely the practical things that are needed to survive, it is learning from each other, talking, having a sense of humor, kindness and love. In this sense, this family of strangers could be any in the world. We all could believe in this "fiction."

There were times during the film, for instance a character flashback and close-up of an elephant on the verge of charging, where I felt a rush of emotion. It was such a change of tempo in sound, plot and vision, and so magical even as brief as it was, that it was like an electrical current surging along my spine. I wish there were more such flashbacks, but that might have taken from the charm. The plot of the story, a migration from a war-torn land and individuals reconstructing their lives as well as their identities, is timely and portent. The only addition for a perfect film; more believable acting. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Seen at the 2016 Miami International Film Festival.

In our review for Robert Guédiguian's wonderful film "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1852006/reviews-6) we raised the question whether Art should be an imitation of life or whether it should be the other way around. The advocates of realism will make the first choice since, in their opinion, life is full of ugliness that Art must faithfully portray. As is often the case, the artist does not even distinguish between realism and pessimism. In the case of cinema, in particular, the audience must leave the theater full of dark thoughts and feelings of vanity; happy ending is a taboo and a positive message should be hard to find. Idealism, on the other hand, reserves a more noble and ambitious role for Art by creating high standards of human character, thus offering psychological, ideological and aesthetic motivation for man to overcome the inherent weaknesses of his nature and morally elevate himself by striving to reach these standards.

Guédiguian's film masterfully balances between these two opposite philosophical trends. One could hardly say anything less about Jacques Audiard's "Dheepan" (Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival). In the first place, the subject – immigration to Europe from war-torn places of the Third World – is so timely that the film almost acquires the character of a documentary. The audience, however, progressively witnesses a marvelous transformation from the harsh reality of human survival to the final triumph of human moral exaltation!

Here is the beginning of the story:

"Dheepan" is a freedom fighter of the "Tamil Tigers" in the Sri Lankan Civil War. The war approaches its end and defeat of the revolutionaries is imminent. Dheepan, whose entire family was lost in the war, decides to flee the country together with a woman and a little girl – two persons previously unknown to him as well as to each other – in the hope that, by pretending that they are a family, it would be easier for them to claim asylum somewhere in Europe. Arriving in Paris, the "family" seeks temporary housing while Dheepan tries to earn some money by selling little things under the nose of the Police. Finally, he finds a permanent job as a caretaker in a building block somewhere in the suburbs. Although the place is miserable and, moreover, is a den of unlawful activities, Dheepan works hard to build a new life for him and his new family...

The craftsmanship of the narrative lies in the wonderful balance between the hard realism of the subject and the cinematic poetry that permeates the film from beginning to end. This narrative carefully and skillfully avoids the traps of over-sentimentalism and political didacticism, as well as the temptation of sanctification or demonization of the various characters, as such oversimplifications would undoubtedly undermine the artistic result. The main heroes, in particular, are not a priori "good". They discover the good parts of their own nature as the story progresses, thus developing as human beings in the process.

It is precisely this miracle of character revelation and moral elevation in front of the viewer's eyes that makes cinema such a wonderful art, after all. And, even if it seems too idealistic to be true, this miracle is far from representing a utopia!

"Dheepan" (2015 release from France; 115 min.) brings the story of a group of Sri Lanka refugees in Paris. As the movie opens, we see a man cremating bodies in the open, and we wonder what is happening. We also see a woman wandering around looking for a child who has lost his or her mother, which she eventually does. Eventually, the picture becomes clearer: in order to be able to migrate into Europe, these three need to pretend to be a family and use a deceased man's (Deepan) passport. They end up in a tough suburb ('banlieu') of Paris, where Dheepan gets a job as the maintenance/groundskeeper guy but where local gangs also run their drug activities. At this point we're 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see how it'll all play out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from writer-director Jacques Audiard, best known for "A Prophet" and "Rust & Bone". I will go see anything this guy does, simply on the basis of his proved talent and track record, time and again. Here he brings a tough story of, on the one hand, how third-world refugees try to adopt and integrate into a Western society, and on the other hand, the even tougher challenge to survive in a crime-and-drugs infested environment. It doesn't make for easy viewing at times. The three lead performers (bringing us Dheepan, his supposed wife, and supposed daughter) are all nothing short of outstanding. The last 20 minutes of the movie will absolutely blow you away (sorry, can't say more than that).

This movie won the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Why it has taken over a year to reach US theaters, I have no idea, but better later than not. The movie finally opened this past weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, and I couldn't wait to see it. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended reasonably well, but I'm not sure this movie will play more than 1 or 2 weeks in the theater, sadly. If you are in the mood for a tough family drama that gives a great insight in some of the struggles encountered by legal migrants in Europe, you cannot go wrong with this, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Dheepan" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Dheepan (the first leading role for Jesuthasan Antonythasan) is a Tamil fighter. He flees war-torn Sri Lanka with Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby), posing as his wife and daughter , hoping that they will make it easier for him to get asylum in Europe . The makeshift family arrives in France and Dheepan finds work as a caretaker for an apartment building that is also a drug front . As Dheepan finds work as the caretaker of a run-down housing block in the suburbs ruled by a nasty gangster (Vincent Rottiers) . But the daily violence he faces off quickly reopens his war wounds , and Dheepan is forced to reconnect with his warrior's instincts to protect his new family .

Jacques Audiard's follow-up to Rust and Bone took home the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival . This thoughtful film has emotion , intense drama , thrills , political events and violence . Dheepan thrives on silence and it results to be a French film shot nearly entirely in Tamil language . A nearly wordless opening showing the eponymous character's tragic departure , the desperate meeting of Dheepan, Yalini, and Illayaal, and the voyage west is particularly effective . Audiard jumps smoothly through time and forces the audience to catch up with only the barest context, producing a marvelously suspenseful prologue . Good performance from Jesuthasan Antonythasan as Dheepan , a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris . Jesuthasan was a boy soldier with the Tamil Tigers before fleeing Sri Lanka for France, just like the character he plays in the movie ; he is a writer, novelist and political activist in real-life . Excellent female lead actors Kalieaswari Srinivasan and Claudine Vinasithamby , both of whom never acted in a feature film before . Special mention for Vincent Rottiers as a tough mobster . Being first feature film of cinematographer Éponine Momenceau who creates an evocative as well as atmospheric cinematography and composer Nicolas Jaar who composes an adequate score . Being shot on location in Mandapam, Tamil Nadu, Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu, Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India and La Coudraie, Poissy, Yvelines, France .

The motion picture was well directed by Jacques Audiard who gets phenomenal interpretations from the three leads , who are all essentially non-actors . Audiard is a good French writer and filmmaker . In the eighties he wrote the screenplays of some successful movies like "Mortelle Randonnee" (1983), "Reveillon Chez Bob" (1984), "Saxo" (1987), "Frequence Meurtre" (1988) and "Grosse Fatigue" (1994). Most of those films were thrillers directed by prestigious filmmakers like Claude Miller and Michel Blanc . He also directed some well received short movies . Thanks to the success of those movies he was able, in 1994, to raise up the money to make his first movie "Regarde Les Hommes Tomber" starred by Mathieu Kassovitz . Kassovitz also became the star of his second movie "Un Heros Tres Discret" released in the Festival de Cannes in 1996 where it won the award for best screenplay. In 2001 he made his third movie "Sur Mes Levres" about a love story between two outsiders . His last movie, "De Battre Mon Coeur Sest Arrête" was released in the Berlin festival of 2005 . His greatest success was ¨A prophet¨ . With those movies, Audiard has become the new master of the "polar" or French thriller and inheritor of others great French directors like Jean-Pierre Melville and Henri Georges-Clouzot .