Tonight I was back in Belgium with the Dardenne Brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc. I watched their latest film, "The Unknown Girl" (2016), made in the same realistic style as all their other movies, with handheld camera throughout, no music, lighting that looks like regular room lighting, and frequently somber characters. They don't come more somber than the lead character in this film, a young doctor who has just joined an established clinic. She is a rising star in local medicine but seems utterly devoid of anything resembling happiness, joy or even a sense of humor. A great doctor with a dour personality.
We see her examining her patients, mostly elderly townsfolk and recent immigrants. She works at a clinic, after all. One night, she is training an intern, and the buzzer rings. Someone is at the front door. It is after hours, though, and she is busy with her intern, so she tells him not to answer the buzzer. "It's not an emergency", she declares, "or else they would have kept buzzing".
The next day, two detectives come calling at the clinic. The dreaded French Police. They want to talk to the doctor, because a teenaged girl, an African immigrant, has been found dead at the edge of the river that runs past the clinic. It appears she has been murdered, and to make matters worse, the French Police have secured the video from the clinic's security cam, and it shows the young girl frantically running to the door and ringing the buzzer on the night in question - the night that the young doctor told her intern to ignore the buzzer.
Now the girl is dead, and the young doctor feels guilty. She thinks "if only I had answered that buzzer". Even worse, the French Police tell her that they are unable to identify the girl, who had no I.D. and as a probable illegal immigrant, has no family members who are willing to jeopardize their own security by coming forward to identify and claim her. She is thus "The Unknown Girl" of the title.
So there you have the set-up. Sounds like a good one, right?
Being that it was made by the Dardennes, you would expect it to be good, but in this case I'm afraid you'd be just a little disappointed.
The main problem is the performance of the lead actress, who is onscreen the entire time. While she is clearly talented and, in checking her IMDB, has appeared in quite a few recent French films, in this movie her character is such a depressing person that it was all I could do not to hit the "eject" button for the first hour of the film. She plays just a single emotion the entire time and presents, with minor variations, a stone face to the camera. In a Dardennes' film, which is supposed to be realistic, it is a very unrealistic portrayal. I thought, "why am I watching this? This woman is depressing me and it's only a movie". But I kept watching because of the murder mystery, which ostensibly made up the plot.
Two questions remained to be answered : 1) Who was The Unknown Girl, and 2) Who killed her?
The story becomes implausible when the young doctor takes it upon herself to play detective. She feels so guilty about the girl's death that she cruises the fringes of the underworld in the city of Leige in order to try to find anyone who knew the girl. She confronts some tough hombres in a Cyber Cafe, who wind up tailing her car and threatening her life. And still she exhibits a stone-faced reaction, with minor variations, when in reality anyone in real life would be freaking out.
So much for Realism in film. The Dardennes are good, but...........I'm not sure they are worthy of all the accolades they have garnered in recent years. I say this because, while I have seen several top-notch and excellent works by The Bros., I have also seen perhaps just as many substandard works.
Here's what The Dardenne Brothers should do :
Leave the politics out of their films.
Now, I know you are saying, "wait Ad, they already did that. There is no mention of politics in Dardenne movies.
Ahh, but there is, and the politics are subtly communicated. Europe has a tremendous psychological problem with it's immigrant influx. Cities have been inundated with refugees and illegals, and these people are desperate. They use fake passports, they turn to prostitution to make money to survive.
It's horrible.
Without going on a tirade I will just point out what you already know, and that is that the Quaint Europe we all think of was in actual fact the creator of the modern problems of society, because it was Europe that colonised Africa, and South America, and Asia. It was England and France and Spain and Belgium that did it the most. And now the chickens have come home to roost, in the form of refugees and other people in these forsaken countries like Gabon (wherever that is), who turn to their former rulers in Belgium, and emigrate there illegally, because that is the only political father figure they know. "Belgium will take care of us".
And so, to the Dardennes' credit, they are showing the effects of European colonization from 150-200 years ago on modern European society, and it isn't pretty.
Remind me not to move to Belgium, which in Dardenne movies looks less like a painting by Van Eyck, and more like a section of Van Nuys, here in the Valley.
So in that respect, they are trying to show the truth of the social decay in their country. Unfortunately, in their less successful films, they present the evidence through false prentenses of characterization. There is no way, in this film, that a 30 year old female doctor with a depressive personality would drive around into the Belgian criminal underworld to try and uncover the killer of The Unknown Girl, toward whom she feels so much guilt.
This was a movie that could have been excellent, like other Dardenne films have been, if only they had tried to write a believable story, instead of making the decision to have the main actress carry the entire film, which, likely through no fault of her own but the fault of The Brothers, she was incapable of doing.
I give "The Unknown Girl" One Thumb Sideways, watch it only if you are a Dardenne completionist.
I think that I am done with movies like this for a while. The so called "realism" being presented nowdays seems a bit contrived, especially in comparison to the total realism of the postwar era, where the genre began. Go back and watch some of the Italian Neo-Realist films to see the real thing.
Please don't mix the guilt politics of subsequent generations with formatted filmmaking. We know that Europe conquered the world, and we know that America followed suit. We know that both Empires dominated and subjugated entire continents and their peoples and cultures.
It is nice, and good, to make small pictures about local humanitarian situations in Belgium or wherever.
But please try to make these pictures as interesting movies.
Movies must be Interesting, or they must Entertain, or both.
The only thing they must not be, is Boring. Sorry, but I wish I had my two hours back.
Elizabeth, if you are reading, I was sorry to hear about The Fine Constant. I can remember all the way back to 2012, when you mentioned a girl who played guitar who used to come over to your house to use your printer......and it was Sarah. You guys have been friends a long time, and you have all accomplished a lot. Really, you have, you and Sarah and Steve and all of your friends.
I hope that both Sarah and Steve will continue to pursue music, and from his post it looks like that's exactly what they are doing, albeit separately.
Best wishes to them.
I am glad you guys are all friends and that you are all doing what you do.
Never stop.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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