Many of us, on Tuesday, massaged in front of the new film by brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne in press viewing. After two Palmes d’Or (Rosetta in 1999 and the child in 2005) and a slew of other prizes, the Belgian siblings are part of the select club that can run for the supreme Cannes award for a third time. Their films, social, committed and deeply humanist, left their mark on the festival.
back with Tori and Lokita, their look filled with compassion and raw realism this time arises on two children of African immigration in Belgium. A teenager (Joely Mbundu) has adopted as a brother, on the boat of exile, a younger boy (Pablo Schils), seen in Benin as a child witch and sent to an orphanage. A cruel life awaited them on the other side of the Atlantic. Between miserable precarious jobs, drug trafficking and forced prostitution for her, nothing is going well. Lokita, undocumented after unsuccessful auditions, has to go work as a night watchman in a cannabis plantation factory. His bond with Tori is strong; bad Belgians are working to break them in this jungle of every man for himself.
“This film is for all the Tori and Lokita who are in Europe, launched the Dardenne. It is to continue to demand that we change the laws for the reception of migrants, and particularly young exiles. »
This is one of their darkest films, where the man is a wolf for the man — and above all, for the child —, where brotherly love constitutes the only refuge against the ambient dehumanization. With close-ups capturing bodies and faces in constant search of an appeasement that never comes, Tori and Lokita cuts out his scenes with a saw, without letting the viewer breathe, who suffers deep misfortunes. This film, performed by non-professionals, reconnects with the quasi-documentary sap of their first opuses. Without dead time, with a sharp blade and often dark images, the nervous rhythm of the work marries the rebounding tragedy of the senseless daily life of its protagonists.
A third Palm? It would still be amazing, even if the film seems to be in line with the president of the jury, Vincent Lindon. While little Pablo Schils, in the truth of his childhood, turns out to be a born actor, Joely Mbundu appears too static, as if stuck in his role. Even through the strongest scenes – when she finds her brother, runs to save her skin or has terrible anxiety attacks – her lack of expression serves her. Not all non-professionals have the grace required to carry a character as powerfully charged and exploited as Lokita’s. And screenplay links sometimes get lost. This does not remove the film’s charge, but prevents it from reaching all the emotion it should arouse.
Dive into the Naples of the camorra
A very classically shaped Italian work, Nostalgia by Mario Martone (The bruised love), was also screened in competition on Tuesday. But its excellent craftsmanship will not make us forget its lack of inventiveness. Like many films in the race this year, this one lacks the spark that lights cinephile fires. However, this does not prevent us from following this well-acted and breathtaking story with interest.
Through the journey of a son from Naples drawn into crime by a childhood companion, returning to the country after 40 years of exile at the bedside of his weakened mother, it is the camerathe Neapolitan mafia, which writes its destiny.
Pierfrancesco Favino is excellent in this role of prodigal son who has become the friend of a committed priest (vibrant Salvatore Striano), but seeking to reconnect with the man who has become the godfather of the place. The former friend (Tommaso Ragno) is a hooded shadow seemingly straight out of Cronenberg’s film. A few flashbacks slip in without breaking the rhythm. The scenes with the mother (Aurora Quattrocchi, terrific) are particularly bright. And in the middle of the winding alleys, in the apartments where the children are doomed to become bandits, a wind of hope wavers, without making us believe in the promised redemption.
It feels like we’ve seen this movie before, actually. Shame ! And when will we feel the breath of the palm pass?
Odile Tremblay is the guest of the Cannes Film Festival.