Le Fils

[ S P O I L E R S ]

In the Dardenne brothers' "Le Fils" ("The Son"), Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) teaches carpentry in a trade school for wayward boys that's a transition from juvenile detention to life in society. The camera focuses on Olivier, tightly on his head and shoulders, relentlessly on him. He walks around the workshop and school. First he makes sure a board is run through a chain saw properly, then he denies a new boy entry into his class, then surprisingly he sneaks around, running, breathless, to peek at the boy as he sits in the office. The boy, Francis (Morgan Marinne), wanted carpentry, but is put in metal shop. Later Olivier goes back to the office after a short period of spying on Francis and says he can come into carpentry after all. Thus begins a relationship between Olivier and this boy that seems to have odd overtones.

We see Olivier at home. He has a back problem and does sit-ups to strengthen his abdominal muscles. He is visited by his shyly smiling ex-wife, Magali (Isabella Soupart), who is to remarry, and will have a child. Olivier is alone, immersed in his work, of which he says only "it makes me feel useful." What we learn is that this new boy in the carpentry class killed their son. Magali is shocked to hear of his appearance: Olivier doesn't tell her the truth: that he has taken the boy into his class. Olivier has decided to nurture the boy; to spy on him; to confront him. It's all of those things.

The Dardennes, who were once documentarians and have made the dramas "La Promesse"(1996) and "Rosetta" (the 1999 Palme d'Or at Cannes), are relentless in their dedication to the mundane lives of working people. The intense narrative focus, which abjures any extraneous amusement or aesthetic flourishes, and the closeness of the handheld camera work, make constructing a wooden box or playing a game of arcade soccer or nearly falling off a ladder into momentous events. Every scene is so bluntly clear and in-your-face it almost hurts to watch. But it's a good hurt -- the hurt of passionately committed filmmaking.

There is no music, only the loud sounds of machinery and woodworking as a background for human voices. The Dardennes show some of the same ability to use a dogged devotion to an everyday reality to get at the essence of their characters and to dissect profound moral dilemmas that we also see in Bruno Dumont's Zen poems of dead-end French provincial life, "La Vie de Jésus" (1997) and "L'Humanité" (1999). One might also think of Rossellini or Bresson. But the Dardennes are Belgian. Olivier Gourmet, who stars in all three of the Dardennes' films, has a harsh, wooden manner. He rarely does anything but bark commands. His glasses hide his eyes.

In "The Son," Olivier is the essence of fairness. Imagine losing your son, and taking his young murderer as your protégé. Magali's reaction is hysterical when she discovers this. But Olivier calms her and procedes with the trip to his brother's lumberyard, where Francis will learn a lesson in recognizing types of wood and where the final showdown (though it is really a beginning) will occur. Neither Gourmet, who has acted in many films, nor Marinne, who has not, seems like an actor. Both have a stolid opacity and an independence that make you accept them as real, mysterious human beings.

Carpentry is an ideal métier for Olivier. Wood expands and contracts: the rules aren't absolute. But the work is honest and the job must be done right. Olivier is experienced, firm, and fair, and his eye can judge the exact distance between two points. No wonder Francis is diffident and respectful toward his teacher and quickly asks him, on this trip to the lumberyard, to be his guardian. For all his gruffness, Olivier is a great and good man. (Interesting that as the father in "La Promesse," Gourmet used much the same manner to convey a man who was cruel and dishonest.) Neither man nor boy is at all good looking or charismatic; both are unsmiling and determined in manner. But both of them earn our profound sympathy and respect in this astonishing, rigorous, humanistic film.

A theft that led to killing, intimacy with the murderer of your own son: these are primal, almost Oedipal situations, and "The Son" for all its ordinariness contains the stuff of high tragedy. Olivier's bluntness and strength and the boy's eager innocence allow truths to come out quickly. The early scenes may seem grating. The tight, jittery camera work is almost sick-making. But the later scenes are more and more moving and cathartic. At the end Francis and Olivier stand side by side in the lumberyard, dirty, wet, exhausted, and speechless. Nothing further needs to be said. Few films leave one with a fuller sense of completion and resolution. It's a superb moment. "The Son" teaches a very profound moral lesson: a wrong can be healed by returning it with goodness. For all the seeming roughness of the technique and the lack of flourishes, the effect is masterful. Gourmet received the prize for best actor at Cannes last year for his performance.

The directors of 'The Son', brothers Jeane-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, are together experienced documentarians. This is made explicitly clear in the film's style, which affords the camera the rare opportunity in modern cinema to see rather than show. The difference is immense. Renoir, Ozu and Rossellini understood the difference, and now the Dardennes can be added to that illustrious list.

The Dardenne brothers are masters of exploding the minutiae of everyday life to beautiful, poetic proportions. Their films are largely concerned with observing people at work (see also Rosetta and La Promesse), obsessively detailing the intricate structures and routines of the mundane, the everyday. Hitchcock famously described film as life with the boring bits removed; a Dardenne film is life with the boring bits dissected, investigated and ultimately celebrated.

The film is about all the sons - the sons that were, the sons that are and the sons that will be - and all should see it.

I saw "le fils" last Saturday during a sneak preview with the directors and actors. All I can say is that this movie moved me. One can say that the shoulder's cam make him/her sick (this was my case). One can say that this movie is boring and that nothing happens (that is also my case). One can say that half of the screen is wasted by the Olivier Gourmet's face close-up. But, at the end of the movie, you can feel the power of the movie. You are moved by this movie because Olivier and the Dardenne expressed the purest emotions.

The Son is a movie about forgiveness, and how the very act of forgiving propels you forward as a human being. And to not only forgive the person who took away your son, but to become a guardian, a teacher to that person is an act of grace. Olivier exhibits this grace throughout the movie, but it is a grace that is not evident by just watching him on a day to day basis. You have have to follow him, listen to him, be with him constantly and understand his circumstances to realize this. I suppose, in a way, that many people possess this grace, but its hard to find it in them if you can't follow them around with a camera. Olivier, on the surface, would not seem like a very interesting person if you saw him on the street, or worked with him on a daily basis, and the boy seems like a dolt, but this movie makes them so interesting, so compassionate, not as characters, but as real people. It teaches you to look beneath the surface of things, of human beings, and if you look hard enough, you'll find beauty everywhere.

This is a MUST SEE film for any working actor.

As an actor, I often study films as I watch them, and I'm proud that as I was watching this movie I picked things out that were later mentioned in the commentaries as being done on purpose. For instance, one immediately notes the unique camera angles (at first it "followed" the main actor from behind, so you only saw his back... yet I was amazed at how much emotion and character was conveyed by his body language)... as the film progressed, I noted how few lines of dialog there were - and how utterly real the acting was. The hand-held camera led to a feeling of voyeurism, like we were actually there watching the watcher... the tension in the movie was palatable and kept me holding my breath... I was slightly disappointed in the very abrupt ending (it was so sudden I actually thought my DVD skipped a chapter)...

In watching the directors & actor's commentary I learned that the film was written FOR this particular actor (what an honor!) because he had had worked with the directors before.... the actor said he believed the body is the actor's instrument and his dream was to someday do a stage show where his back was to the audience the entire time! They also discussed their unique rehearsal process and such - really interesting to hear.... and after seeing this movie, I have now developed my own philosophy of acting: A beginning actor is at Stage 1 where you worry about remembering your lines.... A better actor is in stage 2 and they focus on delivery and HOW their lines are said and the emotions that go with it.... but the best actor is at stage 3 where the real acting is done BETWEEN the spoken lines and without any dialog at all.... that's what I felt this movie really reinforced - the tremendous acting ability done by a glance and body language.... it is in French with subtitles, but it really was a "thinker" of a movie... not something I would recommend to everyone, but a "must see" for any actor.