New Belgium Cinema

I'm always looking for films that I can't describe after seeing.  The type of films that just strike you someplace deep in your chest or in your mind, igniting the fibers and sinews of emotion within your soul.  It shouldn't be too surprising that I found this with The Kid With A Bike the new Dardenne Brothers film.

Thematically, the story is about growing up with the psychic wound of abandonment.  The main character, Cyril (played by new comer Tomas Doret) has been abandoned to a country run children's home, like an orphanage intended to be a halfway towards foster families.  Refusing to believe that his father would abandon him, he attempts to escape from the house and find his father, only to discover that the adults had been telling him the truth.  Upon his capture in a medical clinic he becomes bound by fate to Samantha, a hair dresser (played by the wonderfully natural Cécile de France).  Samantha becomes increasingly attached to Cyril, first out of pity, and second out of honest love.

The wounds of abandonment are hard felt and Cyril is definitely damaged by them.  Psychologically speaking, he cannot reconcile his trauma and acts out in increasingly difficult and vicious ways, seeking love in all the wrong places regardless of the fact that it's been right in front of him all along.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's previous works include the Palmé d'Or winning Rosetta and L'Enfant as well as many others, and they have been working together for the past 37 years.  Their style is very influenced by documentary film making, where they got their start, and their stories tend to be about young people in dire situations.  They generally eschew music, with the exception of diegetic (motivated by the scene, i.e. a car radio, boom box, or television), although Kid is the first to feature a piece of non-diegetic music, a Beethoven piano concerto.  While many of their films do not contain happy or uplifting endings (they are certainly more interested in realism) they focus on the transitory nature of emotion and mental maturity.

I will end on a non spoiler note, that The Kid With A Bike is probably one of their most accessible films to date, in terms of a wider audience appeal.  I watched it with a few friends at The Aero in Santa Monica, CA followed by a Q/A with the Dardenne Brothers and I think it's safe to say that everyone in the theater left with the elation of seeing a film that left a feeling inside them that is difficult, if not impossible, to describe with words.

The film should hit theaters in Los Angeles in March, hopefully a wider release is to come, and it has also been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.