Winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or Award, this tale centers on Bruno (Jeremie Renier), a 20-year-old who spends his days stealing and drug dealing, showing no interest in cleaning up his act when his 18-year-old girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François), gives birth to their son. In fact, the only thing the dysfunctional Bruno sees in his new baby is a new way to make money -- a decision that he soon regrets. When the single mother Sonia returns home with her newborn son, she finds that the baby's father Bruno had rented her apartment for a couple. She seeks out Bruno, who is a small time young thief that has a gang with two other teenagers, on the streets and they go to a shelter to stay during the cold night. On the next morning, they register the child with the name of Jimmy. When Bruno receives a proposal from his dealer for selling Jimmy for adoption for five thousand Euros, he steals the baby and sells him to his contact. However, when Sonia discovers what Bruno did, she faints, goes to the hospital and reports the transaction to the police. Bruno calls off the transaction and retrieves Jimmy, but has to pay to the dealers another five thousand Euros, and this is the beginning of his descent to hell and final redemption. Renier and Francois give deeply affecting performances that help soften the film's harsh blows. L'Infant won the "Palme d'Or" award in 2005 Cannes Film Festival Rosetta. It was also nominated for Best Film and Best Actor (for Renier) at the European Film Awards. The film was chosen as Belgium's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but it failed to secure a nomination. Set in an industrial city in eastern Belgium, L'Infant is shot with the unmistakable Dardenne trademarks: a shaky hand-held camera, natural sounds with no background music, a concern for the underclass that globalization left behind, and a gritty and realistic look and feel. This movie has many strong points,but it failed to consistently keep my interest, but personally I came away wondering what exactly the director was trying to prove by making this film. The film shows that even a hardened criminal can redeem himself when he understands the enormity of his crime. Construction/Production wise this film is a technically precise film, lensed by longtime Dardenne collaborator Alain Marcoen with his typical reliance on unfiltered natural light and elegant shallow-space compositions. However the entire plot of this movie bored me. I have seen enough criminals in action in real life. At the end of the movie is he actually redeemed? This movie affected me like a reality TV thing. Too much detachment and not enough plot. 3 stars
Review of The Child
