📽 THE SON [Jean-Pierre - & Luc Dardenne, 2002] - Movie review by Mandibil

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to follow a complete stranger in a completely unknown environment, without being noticed? How do people really behave when nobody else are around them .. and how do they think and why ... in all the grittiness, repetition and boredom, that are everyday life for most humans. It is a tall order to try and convey this in the cinematic form, but nevertheless, that is what "The Brothers" attempt with this movie.

Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) is the leader of a small joinery, that takes in young people who needs rehabilitation after a prison sentence or a likewise offence. Early on we feel that something is worrying Olivier. He acts strangely, but only the viewer knows that something is going on. The others around him in the joinery notices nothing. Olivier has received a notice about something and we gather that his peculiar behaviors relate to that.

We follow what seem like random scenes of the everyday work in the joinery and it adds to the feeling of being in the "fly on the wall" viewer position. We do not see things through his eyes so to say, but instead all emphasis has been put in being the invisible companion who has suddenly bumped down beside the lead character and have decided to follow close behind him.

The camera is literally on his shoulder at times and generally very close behind - or beside him. We very rarely see him in a full body shot. And most of the time we actually see his neck or his profile. He wears thick glasses, and that adds that strange feeling of not being able to read his mind so well because his eyes are hidden. He is clearly an introvert personality, but with a restrained anger in him.

When his ex-wife visits him in his apartment, we realize where this anger comes from or at least what has enhanced it lately. She has left him and has found a new man, with which she has become pregnant. Olivier has no assertiveness towards the woman and we sense that there is a story with them that we are not told yet, that is important.

The new boy Francis (Morgan Marinne) starts in the joinery and Olivier slowly develops an obsession out of his "interest" for this boy. He observes him and follows him around. He even steals his keys and sneaks into his home. He apparently is putting together a signalement of the boy. Then finally we find out that he and his ex wife had a son who was killed and that Olivier has figured that Francis is the murderer, just as he suspected.

Now the story changes slightly in the way that we see Olivier. He has now been imbued with a motive for revenge but at the same time we know of his basic curiosity about the kid, that seems to be more important to him than a potential revenge. He guides him in his education, he tries to teach him things he thinks he should know. But at the same time we really sense a growing uncontrollable anger in him that pops up now and then when things do not go as he envisioned them.

On a long drive to a large timber trade store, he brings Francis. Olivier seems to be torn between the obvious anger of the knowledge that Francis killed his son, the empathy for the very young and helpless looking kid and then his longing to understand why this happened and possibly his unprocessed emotions about his lost son. We as the viewers are forced to put meaning and thoughts into Olivier, because nothing in the plot or most of his gestures dictates this to us. We are the actual creators of Olivier´s emotions.

He finally confronts Francis with the facts about his son and Francis deed. Francis tries to run away but Olivier, in his immature fashion, tries to tell him that he does not want to revenge his son or hurt him. Francis does not believe him and after a chase in the forest, Olivier finally catches up with him and is very close to strangling him. Maybe because he is torn between revenge and curiosity, but maybe also because he naively expected some sort of conversation with Francis that would not flesh out.

Francis kind of accepts his fate and Olivier leaves him alone. Slowly they go back to the routine the are having, loading the timber onto the truck and they are now back to the old treadmill. The movie cuts of the ending very abruptly, just like when we entered it. Our presence dissolved as quickly as it entered the life of Olivier

This is a very unique movie. I sense an inspiration from the danish Dogme movement that was a bit of a craze in Europe at the time. The handheld camera is at the height of its popularity at this time i believe. For this kind of storytelling, the handheld choice is inevitable and the reason it all works so well. The casting of Olivier is so crucial but he is as perfect a choice as I can imagine. All "movie" tricks are shaved down to a bare minimum to secure our "fly on his shoulders" feeling and to make sure that it is what the viewer feels that become the emotional landscape of Olivier. This may result in an array of interpretations of some details of the story i suppose, but i should think that what i present here is what most people would sense while watching it. This is a very recommendable movie for the sort of testtube laboratory of the cinematography and the choice of actors. it is a movie for those who really like to bring their own mind along and not just get force fed an experience.

(all images are my own photos taken with an iPad directly at the TV screen)

Rating: 8/10