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Dheepan, 2015
A Sri Lankan soldier (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) assumes the identity of a dead man named Dheepan, and manages to immigrate to France by posing as the husband of a woman named Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and the father of an orphaned girl named Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby). But on arriving in their new home, they discover that their apartment block is home to a territorial gang of drug dealers. While Yalini manages to somewhat endear herself to one of the gang's leaders, Brahim (Vincent Rottiers), a confrontation is clearly coming down the line.
How long can someone endure a life on a knife's edge? And how long can someone go on trying to act normal when every day brings a new reminder of a violent past?
The questions evoked by Dheepan are many and they are revealed an explored with an empathy for its central characters. The central trio at the heart of the film are not some idealized, polished version of scrappy-with-a-heart-of-gold immigrants, nor are they perpetual victims. They are deeply human people trying to make the best of a precarious, loaded situation.
Antonythasan and Srinivasan are both electric as people with different goals forced into intimacy and roles (husband, mother) that do not gel with their past lives. Every moment for them is weighted with both the tragedy of the past and the potential for the future. For a short stretch in the middle of the film, Yalini seems to be attracted to Brahim. But while he is charming, his comfort with violence puts an edge into every scene between the two of them.
The visuals of the film support the theme of the intrusion of the past into the present. Men patrolling the apartment building immediately raise alarms for Dheepan. Loud bangs, smoke, revving engines. The past can never stay past for the main characters because it lives inside of them and is unrelentingly mirrored in their present setting.
I am still mulling over how I feel about the direction the film takes in the last 15 or so minutes, which feels a little jarring after the intimate realism of the rest of the film.
Setting aside still thinking over the ending, I really loved this movie. I thought that it was a powerful look inside an experience that most people will never know or understand.
Dheepan, 2015
A Sri Lankan soldier (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) assumes the identity of a dead man named Dheepan, and manages to immigrate to France by posing as the husband of a woman named Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and the father of an orphaned girl named Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby). But on arriving in their new home, they discover that their apartment block is home to a territorial gang of drug dealers. While Yalini manages to somewhat endear herself to one of the gang's leaders, Brahim (Vincent Rottiers), a confrontation is clearly coming down the line.
How long can someone endure a life on a knife's edge? And how long can someone go on trying to act normal when every day brings a new reminder of a violent past?
The questions evoked by Dheepan are many and they are revealed an explored with an empathy for its central characters. The central trio at the heart of the film are not some idealized, polished version of scrappy-with-a-heart-of-gold immigrants, nor are they perpetual victims. They are deeply human people trying to make the best of a precarious, loaded situation.
Antonythasan and Srinivasan are both electric as people with different goals forced into intimacy and roles (husband, mother) that do not gel with their past lives. Every moment for them is weighted with both the tragedy of the past and the potential for the future. For a short stretch in the middle of the film, Yalini seems to be attracted to Brahim. But while he is charming, his comfort with violence puts an edge into every scene between the two of them.
The visuals of the film support the theme of the intrusion of the past into the present. Men patrolling the apartment building immediately raise alarms for Dheepan. Loud bangs, smoke, revving engines. The past can never stay past for the main characters because it lives inside of them and is unrelentingly mirrored in their present setting.
I am still mulling over how I feel about the direction the film takes in the last 15 or so minutes, which feels a little jarring after the intimate realism of the rest of the film.
Setting aside still thinking over the ending, I really loved this movie. I thought that it was a powerful look inside an experience that most people will never know or understand.