Dheepan
"Hear the cries in the refugee camps
Those crying children are the Tigers of tomorrow"
Brooklyn left me considering that the story of the Syrian refugee in Germany should get a similar treatment. The sweetness of that story felt non-judgemental, which is required in this modern context. British artists weren't telling Brexit stories, to help us understand our feelings at the time, as if they completely missed the ineffable mood of the times; a service art renders. A key to a door, that otherwise remains closed, to one's understanding, of how people fit with the world as it changes around us. Brooklyn isn't an issue movie. Not because it doesn't elucidate upon important subjects, but because it is cinematic. It tells a story, and we can think about its wider implications later, if we want. Dheepan is similar, if a little more apparent for how it can help with the intractability of the state of the refugee crisis in Europe today. Audiard distances the film. The struggle continues, but the war isn't with the west, and these soldiers aren't the enemy within; so, emotionally, I am not at odds with it. Perspective is maintained, and objectivity isn't overwhelmed by an implied threat, if this were the story of Syrians or Libyans.
Audiard takes care to interface these refugees with French society as it exists on a sink estate. They slip into the servant role of the jobs the locals wouldn't want. It gives them an opportunity, yet at the same time, their position will appear degraded, close to crime. How close, also, can they get to this new society from their position at the bottom? Audiard mirrors their watchful pose; like they are viewing a movie through the window. Little they can do but work and watch. Audiard makes a movie not a documentary. Whether Dheepan is lucky to escape a war or not, somewhat depends on who Dheepan is, which the film reveals. The character stripped of identity by his refugee status, as emphasised by the story, reasserts itself. Once a soldier, always a soldier? Certainly a difference between children playing with guns and a real soldier. It's clear why this Tamil context works better than an Arab one would; bearing in mind that Audiard is quite practiced in that perspective. More distance aids empathy and doesn't confuse it. The Tiger appears from the jungle but one doesn't take its teeth to be bared at "us".
The ending with England as a place of warming sunshine, choral, heavenly music and a welcoming integration of people, as opposed to the bleakness of French council estates made me laugh. Merci Jacques, welcome to the promised land, huh?
My thought about Rust and Bone was that, "Jacques Audiard is assembling a collection of choice, complex violent men." However quietly they may want to live, its the proximity to violence and their reactions, which define them, tellingly.