date watched: June 8, 2009
location: Apgujung CGV, Seoul, Korea
This was my first Dardenne Bros.' film viewing! Their style is reminiscent of Truffaut, and sometimes Bergman, two directors I adore.
This film also won the 2008 Cannes Screenplay award, and was nominated for the Golden Palm award.
When the viewer follows Lorna (played by Arta Dorboshi) around Belgium, at her job, at the bank, in the streets--he assumes there is nothing too extraordinary about her. It is not the threats outside that bother Lorna, but the ones inside her home. She is basically paid to be married to a druggie, who struggles, mentally and physically, the pains of withdrawal. Lorna doesn't offer her warmest sympathies, and instead reacts coldly to his pleas. In fact, she won't even help him reject the drugs, when Claudy (her husband, played by Jérémie Renier) asks her to throw away the house key (in a later scene, she does, but the motivation is reversed).
Lorna's cruelty towards Claudy gives us the feeling that there are no emotions involved in this relationship, only a sense of duty. In this way, the movie reminded me a lot of Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie (1962), in which the female protagonist (played by Anna Karina), is merely a bridge and a prostitute (in both figurative and literal ways), to help the gangsters and pimps get their piece of the pie, so to speak. Nobody really cares about Lorna deeply, and yet they must all rely on her, and on the institution of marriage for each man to get what he wants. Lorna only starts to realize the kind-hearted man Claudy is, when he is stripped of strength, and commits himself to a hospital to be treated for his drug problems. I think Lorna started to fall in love with Claudy when she watched him sleep in the hospital bed, since he was just like a big baby, wanting attention and care.
Instead of breaking into hysterics after Claudy has mysteriously died (there is no explicit explanation, but we are to make out that it is Fabio's doing), she toughens up. She suddenly acts on her own, instead of following Fabio's instructions and supporting her boyfriend. She knows that she is pregnant with Claudy's baby, even though everyone else tells her otherwise (I think this is again Fabio's doing).
The film ends on an open-ended note: we know that for now, Lorna and the baby are safe, and that she is far from the controlling hands of Fabio & Co., but she has no money, and the only roof above her head is a tiny log house in the middle of the woods. She falls asleep in this make-shift shelter, and despite her worn-down surroundings, she looks safe, and much like the sleeping Claudy we saw earlier, innocent and peaceful.
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