L'Enfant, take two

The movie at the Art Theatre right now, "L'Enfant," is the most recent film by the Belgian Dardenne brothers, who made "The Son" a few years ago. They make films with the most moral, Christian sensibility since Robert Bresson did 40 years ago, but the films are in no way religious.

Here is one paragraph of a review of "L'Enfant" from the New York Times. I'm sending it because it quotes Crime and Punishment. Also, wanting to know as little as possible about the movie before I saw it, I avoided reviews (even though the film had won the top prize at Cannes in 2005), but I couldn't help learning out of the corner of my eyes that it involved someone who sells his child. This is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a relief that the film does not follow a Hollywood suspense tradition; things are "resolved" rather quickly; and the main focus of the movie is not saving the child but about the character and psychology of the young man who thoughtlessly does the deed and the potential for his eventual redemption.

From the NYTimes critic Manohla Dargis: "Why make a film about Bruno? The same might be asked about Raskolnikov. Like Robert Bresson, whose "Pickpocket" informs "L'Enfant" and is itself a loose reworking of "Crime and Punishment," the Dardennes are not interested in passing judgment on a grievously flawed character; that's why God and Hollywood were invented. Since there is no moral ambiguity in the act of selling another human being, there would be no point in such judgment, other than to indulge in some self-satisfied finger-wagging. Rather, what interests the Dardennes — what invests their work with such terrific urgency — is not only how Bruno became the kind of man who would sell a child as casually as a slab of beef, but also whether a man like this, having committed such a repellent offense, can find redemption."