“OUR CHILDREN” ****
If you are not aware of the content and inspiration for this romance turned tragic, created by Belgium director Joaquim Lafosse, you will be caught by surprise, and will definitely get your heart in pieces. That’s one of the reasons which I love cinema, the surprises emerging from the exploration on other people’s lives. There’s no reason to be a spoiler here, fact is that Lafosse made one of the best studies on human relationships, and although I dislike and cannot understand the act of the resolution, based on real events, the film seduces and grabs one’s attention through the romance of a young couple.
The film opens with them enjoying an idyllic moment of pure love in the middle of a field. Lafosse follows their relationship, growing stronger, getting married and consequently having children. The love story between gorgeous Murielle and Mounir, an adopted man who’s been living with Doctor Pinget since he was a child, will be interrupted by the decisions they have to make along the way. Once Pinget provides everything for the couple and their children, a possessive, manipulative and unbalanced aspect fills the scenario, changing its course. At first we are delighted with the beauty of the relationship, but then, everything gets twisted, specially when other family members approach them with their issues such as immigration and debts.
Lafosse tells this story with incredible sensibility and efficiency, focusing on each detail of the situation, and exploring each one’s emotions, justifying their actions. As the romance becomes suffocating and out of control, and their relationship with Pinget, the figure of a parent who’s afraid of solitude and determined to deal with consequences in order to keep them together, the screenplay also depicts an economic social crisis threatening the structure of a home.
Everything works well along the narrative, the luminous cinematography, complex editing using flashbacks, the moving score, but the greatest attribute is the trio of talented actors, giving us space to enter their feelings, sharing the love, the guilty and the despair. It’s impossible to look away when Emilie Dequenne is present with her complex behavior as Murielle, Niels Arestrup has a chance to practice unseen acting skills with an affective role as the Doctor, and Tahar Rahim proves he’s the best European actor of his generation as the Moroccan immigrant. And even that the most important aspect of the story, must shock and disturb, it’s a powerful and painful look inside a dysfunctional family. (Playing at Film Society Lincoln Center, 144W 65th Street, NYC)
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