Dheepan - Una nuova vita

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!

Greetings again from the darkness. Wars exist in many different forms. Some are over contested international boundaries, others are religious conflicts, while others are more personal and intimate. The stories of many refugees could be described as fleeing one type of war only to end up fighting a different kind. Such is the story of Dheepan.

Jacques Audiard is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. A Prophet (2009) and Rust and Bone (2012) are both compelling films, and though his latest may not be quite at that level, it's still full of intensity and personal drama. Mr. Audiard co-wrote the screenplay with Thomas Bidegain and Noe Dibre, and some of it is based on the remarkable real life story of lead actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan.

Dheepan is a Tamli soldier who is so desperate to flee Sri Lanka that he teams with a woman and young girl he doesn't know to form what looks like a real family. By using passports of people killed during the war, the pre-fab family of three is issued visas to live in France. Dheepan gets a job as the caretaker for an apartment complex riddled with crime, violence and drugs – and learns to keep his mouth shut and eyes open.

It's fascinating to watch these three people navigate their new life as they struggle with the language and a new culture. There are flashes of real family problems, but also the awkwardness of three whose only true bond is their escape from their previous life. Living in such close proximity means their true colors are bound to shine through no matter how much effort goes into the family façade.

Jesuthasan Antonythasan (Dheepan) and Kalieaswari Srinivasan (as Yalini his wife) are both excellent and powerful in their roles despite being so inexperienced as actors. Their exchanges are believable, as is their disparate approach to the future. Ms. Srinivasan is especially strong in her scenes with local thug Brahim, played by Vincent Rottiers. The two have such an unusual connection … alternating between warm and frightening.

Some have found fault with the final action sequence, but it's such a fitting turn of events given Dheepan's past … plus the camera work is outstanding. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and it's another notch in the belt of filmmaker Jacques Audiard. It's also a reminder that we can never really escape the past.

Watched this prestigious Palme d'Or winner in the local art house cinema Zawya, it is French auteur Jacques Audiard's seventh feature film, who is on a hot streak in the past decade, from THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED (2005), to A PROPHET (2009), then RUST AND BONE (2012), now finally DHEEPHAN hits the home run in his motherland.

To escaping from the living hell of a defeated war in Sri Lanka, a Tamil freedom fighter Dheepan (Antonythasan, who was a real-life boy solider of Tamil Tiger before fleeing to France), forges a family with Yalini (Srinivasan), a young woman in her early twenties and Illayaal (Vinasithamby), a nine-year-old girl, which facilitates the process of seeking asylum in Europe, and they end up in a Le Pré, a suburban area of Paris (although Yalini hopes to go to the Great Britain, where her cousin is) where anarchy is still held rampant among local gangsters. In spite of their language debacle, Dheepan becomes a caretaker of a derelict housing block and he also finds a job for Yalini, as a hourly maid to attend to a senior uncle of the gangster member Brahim (Rottiers), who has just been released from the penitentiary for probation, whereas Illayaal enrols in the local school where she has a tough time to blend in.

Paris, even the suburban area, should be a safe haven for the makeshift family taking flight from a war zone, but in Audiard's conception, France is far cry from a paradise for immigrants and refugees, hooliganism and gang war threaten Dheepan and his family's life almost on a daily basis, which is an ever so familiar situation for them, as if the shadows of war have tracked them from their native country to another continent, no exit is on the horizon, everywhere seems to be a dead-end, life is almost the same, worthless, in spite of being accommodated in a quite comfy apartment and earning a self-sufficient wages, they can be dispatched by the flying bullets any time on the streets, even under the broad daylight. Sooner or later, the straining mental stress will implode, especially for Yalini, whose working condition becomes increasingly precarious since she deals with gangster members first-hand, a highly-stylish set piece where Dheepan single-handedly takes on the droogs to save Yalini, with unusual subjective camera angle and heightened slo- motion shots aiming persistently to the waist-below, it is Audiard's intemperate stunt to impress after holding it back for a long time, nevertheless it deficiently appeases what viewers anticipate (especially when Dheepan's provocative behaviour of drawing the line between warring gangsters receives no personal danger to him or whatsoever) - to exaggerate Dheephan's "heroic act" as if he is the action hero who is capable to calmly finishing off his enemies one by one with great panache, is too much a stretch, even for someone with his battlefield background, since his life is too insignificant to matter under the radical situations which Audiard insists to lead us on. So is the ambiguous happy ending in England, a dream too perfect to be true which contradicts the harsh realism which Audiard intently fabricates.

Where all three main actors are non-professionals, it is pleasing to watch a tangible bond has been built between Yalini and Brahim, lost in translation, they don't understand each other's language, but the beguiling charm and draw between total strangers has reached its well-received receptor without put civil decency at its expense. In spite of being an allegorical account of a seemingly ordinary person's unexpected hidden depths, DHEEPHAN arrives topically in the current muddy waters of immigrants and war refugees in Europe, it leaves the impression of a self-justifying excuse to warn those unfortunately masses, but maybe they are not deeming Europe as the promised land, for them, any place other than their levelled home, is an egress from danger and poverty, so, at such desperation, it is well worth it.

One particularly telling scene of Audiard's poetic creativity is when the location transitions from Sri Lanka to Paris, the blurry fluorescent light slowly reveals itself being generated from a plastic hat which Dheepan wears when he is hawking on the street of Paris with other immigrants, such sleight-of-hand is mesmerising, alas, there is just not enough of them in this Palme d'Or crowner.

"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!