In the mid-90's, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne had an unpleasant collective experience encouraging them to trim the work force and be as minimal as efficient. You don't win audiences by just taking the camera and "shooting", but for all their innovative directing, storytelling is the siblings' strongest suit, and seldom had directors provided such rich palettes of humanity's struggles through globalized economical crisis as the Dardennes did.
Recently, President Trump dared to call some third-world countries with a "S" slur, I only wish him to live the same experience as the protagonist. His name is Igor, he's played by Jeremie Renier, he's only 15 but it's never too late to learn. With his long blonde hair and angelic next-door look, we wouldn't believe this mechanic apprentice is the kind of kid to put himself in trouble, so when he steals an old woman's wallet after checking her engine, we think there must be a "good reason". A girlfriend. A motorcycle to buy. Maybe drugs. But that's too conveniently 'normal' for his age. Igor is no ordinary teenager, we see him with his father Roger, played by the talented Olivier Gourmet, a mix between French Gérard Jugnot and American Paul Giamatti, an everyday man who found the worst possible way to make money. He drives a van occupied by undocumented immigrants, some African, some from Eastern Europe (EU had half less members at that time) and takes them to a shackled building where current residents complain about the rates and the stink. There are obviously some dysfunctions in the sewer lines but Roger, pampering and pimping them, promises to take care... if they help him to finish the construction. But they have to pay.
One of them doesn't have enough money, he's a gentle looking African man named Amidu and had just welcomed his wife Assita and their baby boy. Roger has a few standards, he doesn't throw them out but cuts the debts out of Amidu's "wages". This is such an ugly and sordid world that we immediately understand Igor's initial misdemeanor, he's not bad but simply trapped in a maturity too precocious not to be flawed. Igor didn't grow up to be cynical, he just embraces his job with a sense of filial obedience (and maybe love) for his father who, as a token of their complicity, lets him smoke, drive the car or hang out with him at bars. And the first act works on two levels, it's both a father-and-son relationship exposition and an undercover documentary about immigrants' treatment where the camera, right behind Roger or Igor seems to slide between narrow corridors where the doors hide unshaven and worn out men gambling, having sex for money or Assita, whose housewife's dignity doesn't deserve to be surrounded by such sordidness. It's an atmosphere of neo-realism channeling the image of the Turkish Prison from "Midnight Express". In a way, these people are like prisoners of a condition.
There's an incredible scene where Igor and Roger lure five immigrants into a café by making them believe they're going to sail to America, only for the cops to apprehend them while Igor hide in the lavatory. This is a powerful scene because it showcases something even worse than human trafficking but betrayal within that trafficking, and betrayal for symbolic purposes, so that the town's mayor can prove that he's handling the situation. So maybe Trump should be reminded that the "S" word he's referring to works in a system of pipes and ramifications that know no frontiers corruption-wise, horizontally and... vertically. Immigrants are like pawns of a system and so is Igor within his father's schemes, this is not a benign parallel because from the start, from the way Igor was peeping at the immigrants' rooms, you knew he didn't look at them like Roger did, not like a warden, but a cellmate, jailed behind the bars of a corrupt adulthood. He could enjoy karting with his friends, having a few moments of freedom on his motorcycle (the film's defining image), but his main occupation was so demanding that it cost him his apprenticeship. At some point, ignoring the warning of his boss, he leaves the garage when Roger calls him for emergency. And then death takes a halt in his life and his journey can begin.
To escape from work inspectors, Amidu falls from the scaffold and get mortally injured, Igor tries to prevent the hemorrhages but Roger lets him die and decides to bury him under the cement. The most shocking thing is that we're not even "surprised" by Roger's behavior. But there's a glimmer of hope, before Amidu dies, he makes Igor promise him to take care of his wife and his boy. A last exchange, but that suddenly puts Igor in a situation of conflicting interests with Roger, and Igor knows his father is wrong and will do anything to get rid of Assita when she starts talking about going to the Police.
In a poignant and courageous existential impulse, Igor doesn't just take care of Assita but saves her. It's not as easy as it sounds, he must gain her trust, escape from his father and perhaps the toughest thing which is to find the right moment to tell her about her husband. But if this journey started with a tragedy, we know it ends with a redemption, and goes through the gradual awakening of a conscience, of a boy who stopped being an actor. And Jeremie Renier is quite an actor, and I would say "a reactor". He starts as a boy who's seen so many things that he can't even differentiate between good and evil. But he knows for sure that lying to this woman and abusing her is wrong and he acts accordingly so.
As for the believability of a teenager and an African woman to slip through the net, let's say that the capability of the Dardennes pair to make such a powerful lesson of empathy with a minimalist budget and equipment is a credit to it.
Recently, President Trump dared to call some third-world countries with a "S" slur, I only wish him to live the same experience as the protagonist. His name is Igor, he's played by Jeremie Renier, he's only 15 but it's never too late to learn. With his long blonde hair and angelic next-door look, we wouldn't believe this mechanic apprentice is the kind of kid to put himself in trouble, so when he steals an old woman's wallet after checking her engine, we think there must be a "good reason". A girlfriend. A motorcycle to buy. Maybe drugs. But that's too conveniently 'normal' for his age. Igor is no ordinary teenager, we see him with his father Roger, played by the talented Olivier Gourmet, a mix between French Gérard Jugnot and American Paul Giamatti, an everyday man who found the worst possible way to make money. He drives a van occupied by undocumented immigrants, some African, some from Eastern Europe (EU had half less members at that time) and takes them to a shackled building where current residents complain about the rates and the stink. There are obviously some dysfunctions in the sewer lines but Roger, pampering and pimping them, promises to take care... if they help him to finish the construction. But they have to pay.
One of them doesn't have enough money, he's a gentle looking African man named Amidu and had just welcomed his wife Assita and their baby boy. Roger has a few standards, he doesn't throw them out but cuts the debts out of Amidu's "wages". This is such an ugly and sordid world that we immediately understand Igor's initial misdemeanor, he's not bad but simply trapped in a maturity too precocious not to be flawed. Igor didn't grow up to be cynical, he just embraces his job with a sense of filial obedience (and maybe love) for his father who, as a token of their complicity, lets him smoke, drive the car or hang out with him at bars. And the first act works on two levels, it's both a father-and-son relationship exposition and an undercover documentary about immigrants' treatment where the camera, right behind Roger or Igor seems to slide between narrow corridors where the doors hide unshaven and worn out men gambling, having sex for money or Assita, whose housewife's dignity doesn't deserve to be surrounded by such sordidness. It's an atmosphere of neo-realism channeling the image of the Turkish Prison from "Midnight Express". In a way, these people are like prisoners of a condition.
There's an incredible scene where Igor and Roger lure five immigrants into a café by making them believe they're going to sail to America, only for the cops to apprehend them while Igor hide in the lavatory. This is a powerful scene because it showcases something even worse than human trafficking but betrayal within that trafficking, and betrayal for symbolic purposes, so that the town's mayor can prove that he's handling the situation. So maybe Trump should be reminded that the "S" word he's referring to works in a system of pipes and ramifications that know no frontiers corruption-wise, horizontally and... vertically. Immigrants are like pawns of a system and so is Igor within his father's schemes, this is not a benign parallel because from the start, from the way Igor was peeping at the immigrants' rooms, you knew he didn't look at them like Roger did, not like a warden, but a cellmate, jailed behind the bars of a corrupt adulthood. He could enjoy karting with his friends, having a few moments of freedom on his motorcycle (the film's defining image), but his main occupation was so demanding that it cost him his apprenticeship. At some point, ignoring the warning of his boss, he leaves the garage when Roger calls him for emergency. And then death takes a halt in his life and his journey can begin.
To escape from work inspectors, Amidu falls from the scaffold and get mortally injured, Igor tries to prevent the hemorrhages but Roger lets him die and decides to bury him under the cement. The most shocking thing is that we're not even "surprised" by Roger's behavior. But there's a glimmer of hope, before Amidu dies, he makes Igor promise him to take care of his wife and his boy. A last exchange, but that suddenly puts Igor in a situation of conflicting interests with Roger, and Igor knows his father is wrong and will do anything to get rid of Assita when she starts talking about going to the Police.
In a poignant and courageous existential impulse, Igor doesn't just take care of Assita but saves her. It's not as easy as it sounds, he must gain her trust, escape from his father and perhaps the toughest thing which is to find the right moment to tell her about her husband. But if this journey started with a tragedy, we know it ends with a redemption, and goes through the gradual awakening of a conscience, of a boy who stopped being an actor. And Jeremie Renier is quite an actor, and I would say "a reactor". He starts as a boy who's seen so many things that he can't even differentiate between good and evil. But he knows for sure that lying to this woman and abusing her is wrong and he acts accordingly so.
As for the believability of a teenager and an African woman to slip through the net, let's say that the capability of the Dardennes pair to make such a powerful lesson of empathy with a minimalist budget and equipment is a credit to it.