THE KID WITH A BIKE

(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2011) Part of the magic of the cinema of the Dardennes Brothers is the way they seem to conjure stories from nothing. Take The Kid with the Bike as an example. It observes a few months in the life of Cyril (Thomas Doret), a 12 year old boy living in foster care at a childrens home in Seraing, Belgium. He is obsessed with finding his father (Jermie Renier) who has left his old apartment and changed his phone number. Eventually he meets Samantha (Cecile de France), a hair dresser who is kind to him, and who agrees to let him live with her at weekends. From these simple elements, the Dardennes create a modern sort of fairytale about innocence, trust, love and responsibility, as Cyril has to learn to let his father go and accept the love Samantha is offering him. The story puts the characters through some emotional and physical violence - Cyril is a damaged boy with a propensity for lashing out - which goes some way to leavening the formulaic nature of that arc of ultimate redemption, and includes a typically low-key and banal criminal episode near the narratives end. By this point, the Dardennes methodology is a smoothly running machine, their blocking, camera placement and cutting all near-invisible. The story and characters are all, making the cast crucial. Young Doret is magnetic in the lead, his soulful face utterly watchable and enigmatic, and the Dardennes frequently allow their camera to follow him for extended passages as he wheels through the suburbs on his bike. De France and Renier offer excellent, authentic-seeming support, the latter appearing to revisit his character from the earlier The Child. This is a film filled with shots of adults stealing looks at a young boy, always evaluating and wondering about him, just as the audience is. It feels slightly different from their earlier films; it is set in Summer and as such, features an airier, brighter and more colourful view of the Industrial town of Seraing. Much of the action takes place in a vivid, leafy housing estate on sun-dappled days and warm nights, and the film includes music, previously not part of the Dardennes armoury. Here they use Beethoven's Adagio, from the Fifth Piano Concerto, and while it adds a layer of emotional resonance, it simultaneously appears both overly sentimental and manipulative. That isn't entirely a criticism, for it is one of the factors that helps make The Kid with a Bike a truly moving experience.

THE CHILD

(Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005) By the time they came to make The Child, Belgian writer-director brothers the Dardennes had honed their method to a fine edge. After a couple of decades making documentaries they had found success with The Promise in 1996 and perfected the techniques they used there over another two realist dramas before tackling The Child.  Those techniques are remarkably consistent and tremendously effective. They shoot using natural, available light, with handheld cameras and usually in long takes. There is no music. Their stories are all set in the grim, post-industrial city of Seraing in Liege, Belgium. Those stories feel like fables; they are generally beautifully simple, with a few principle characters and one plot line. And yet they can be transcendent in effect. They deal, on the surface at least, with economic hardship, petty crime and everyday moral dilemmas. Yet they address themes of spirituality and belief, hope and redemption. The acting is naturalistic, and the brothers block the action and position their camera in such a way as to make themselves wholly invisible, their fictional world entirely absorbing.  Their films, then, are powerful, moving, and even, in the case of moments in The Child, incredibly gripping. It follows Bruno (Jérémie Renier) and Sonia (Déborah François), a young couple, barely surviving on welfare and the proceeds of Bruno's petty crime in the aftermath of the birth of their first child, Jimmy. Bruno, an irresponsible, selfish manchild, seems unmoved by the appearance of the baby, distracted by panhandling, organising burglaries and sleeping rough. Quickly he decides to sell the child for adoption. When Sonia reacts with horror, he has to buy the baby back, finds himself in debt to gangsters and without his girlfriend. From there, Bruno only gets more desperate. Renier and François both underplay it, giving their relationship an unforced, plain feel which is believable throughout. Renier is marvellous, the camera trained on him for most of the running time, and though his actions are monstrous, the audience wills him towards redemption and maturity. This is partly due to the Dardennes incredible ability to observe with a complete neutrality - their camera is cold and utterly without judgement - but also down to Renier's natural likeable quality and onscreen charisma. His journey is at times agonising - a couple of gruelling bus rides out to run-down suburbs are weighted with dread - and finally suspenseful, when a crime he has arranged goes wrong. The Dardennes' method seems to work for any kind of story - it always feels truthful and unvarnished, and only adds a layer or immediacy to the peril Bruno finds himself struggling with here. Yet it is also ideal for finding the emotion in the ambiguity of the ending and suggesting a bit more depth than is immediately apparent in any synopsis.  This may be the tale of a young man discovering his own humanity, or it may simply be about a petty criminal feeling sorry for himself. Part of the brilliance of these filmmakers is that they let the viewer decide.