For all the ways Belgium’s Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are rightly hailed as masterful contemporary realists with an abiding compassion for society’s fringe strugglers — the poor, the undocumented, the criminal, the victimized — they’ve just as easily earned their place as some of the greatest suspense directors of all time.
Their street-level stories, frequent Cannes winners since 1999’s “Rosetta,” typically hinge on a central desperation tied to simple survival, but when played out with their trademark visual restlessness and character-driven purposefulness, they’re often as nail-biting as any genre exercise or melodrama.
Which makes “Young Ahmed,” the pair’s latest dispatch from the viewpoint of a troubled soul — in this case, a 13-year-old Belgian boy in the dangerous throes of religious fanaticism — both a typically unnerving entry in their canon, and a strangely distancing one, given the impenetrability of its lead’s self-destructiveness.
Also Read: In 'Young Ahmed,...
Their street-level stories, frequent Cannes winners since 1999’s “Rosetta,” typically hinge on a central desperation tied to simple survival, but when played out with their trademark visual restlessness and character-driven purposefulness, they’re often as nail-biting as any genre exercise or melodrama.
Which makes “Young Ahmed,” the pair’s latest dispatch from the viewpoint of a troubled soul — in this case, a 13-year-old Belgian boy in the dangerous throes of religious fanaticism — both a typically unnerving entry in their canon, and a strangely distancing one, given the impenetrability of its lead’s self-destructiveness.
Also Read: In 'Young Ahmed,...
- 3/5/2020
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
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