<
BACK
Ken Loach's Raining Stones might seem a self-evident
choice for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne to contribute to this
series. Like Loach, the writer-director siblings spotlight people on
the very margins of society, showing their lives with passion and
compassion. Also like him, they mix actors with non-professionals
and employ a plain, naturalist aesthetic.
But in fact they spent a lot of time and trouble
agonising over which film to talk about. Scorsese's Gangs of New York, Chaplin's Modern Times,
Kieslowski's White, Bresson's A Man Condemned, and various titles by
Rossellini and Maurice Pialat were considered and rejected.
Their range of candidates reveals them to be eclectic
in their tastes, keenly interested in film (they have seen much of
Loach's other work) and anxious to do full justice to their choice.
"You have to take care when talking about someone else's work," says
Luc, the younger of the two. "You mustn't massacre it."
They are thoughtful and meticulous, sometimes
agreeing with each other, sometimes interrupting to refine a point,
or to contest it. When filming together, one imagines, the brothers
must collaborate just like this.
They have been making films for more than 20 years.
But they did not burst on the international scene until 1999, when
Rosetta, the heart-breaking story of a girl battling for survival on
the poverty line, took Cannes by storm - and was the bombshell
winner of the Palme d'Or (its young star, Emilie Dequenne, was also
jointly named Best Actress).
Their new film, The Son, is set in the same
down-at-heel steel town in eastern Belgium - Seraing - where they
base themselves. In it, a joiner confronts a terrible memory from
his past when he finds that his strange new apprentice is the youth
who killed his son.
The brothers proceed to analyse Raining Stones -
which they saw in the cinema when it was released a decade ago - in
enormous detail. It is set in Lancashire's Catholic community, and
its protagonist is an unemployed man determined to buy his daughter
a brand new dress for her first communion.
When various money-making scams fall through, he
turns to a vicious loan shark to raise the cash. "He wants to give
his daughter pleasure," Jean-Pierre says. "To do something good, he
risks everything and sets something in motion which he can't
control. And he will have to react to that. It will open his
eyes."
Luc: "There are several great moments. One is when
the man's best friend goes home broke. His daughter comes back with
some money and we understand she has been dealing drugs. He sits in
his armchair and cries: he has lost his status, his morale. It's
terrible for him, as the head of the family. Loach shows human
beings with a very strong sense of dignity, and how the working
class has been destroyed from within, by poverty and unemployment."
Jean-Pierre: "The other scene we've often talked
about, my brother and I, is between the mother and daughter. The
film spends a lot of time with them, as they bake cakes for a party.
We see all the little gestures, the little girl cutting the pastry.
There's a certain light which creates an atmosphere of tenderness.
It's filmed simply, like a documentary; we don't feel the director's
presence. Things seem to happen naturally, as if they were taken
from life."
That same precise attention to the small acts of
day-to-day existence can be observed in the Dardennes' own films -
in, for instance, Rosetta's heroic struggle to move a gas canister
so heavy she can barely lift it, or The Son's long scenes in which
the joiner demonstrates his craft to his pupils.
"And then," Jean-Pierre continues, "suddenly
barbarism breaks in - the loan shark who comes to collect his money
and destroy everything."
Luc: "Obviously, there's a narrative structure. But
quickly you start following individual characters, who aren't just
excuses to advance the plot."
Jean-Pierre: "Loach makes people individuals, not
just mouthpieces for a point of view."
So enthusiastic do the brothers become that one
wonders if they have any reservations about the film. "There's only
one thing I don't like," Luc says, and his brother chimes in to
pre-empt the end of the sentence: "The music."
Luc: "There's this constant background of music. We
never use music. We don't think it's useful in our kinds of
film."
Although many critics are mightily impressed by the
power of the Dardennes' vision, some viewers find it austere and
forbidding, in both the choice of setting and the severe no-frills
manner of shooting it. Certainly, while much of Loach's work has a
rich vein of humour, and while the Dardennes in person are a jolly
duo, their films remain in a profoundly serious register. They shrug
and laugh loudly in unison.
"Ah yes, we know. But we're not much good at
comedy."