Having seen all their films (I think) by now, I can summarize what makes the dardenne brothers unique in cinema history.
All their films are tragedies, heartrending tragedies were it not for the everyday feel of all of them. We do not recognize the tragedies in our midst because everyday reality is so overwhelming that it blurs everything. We equally do not recognize the people who are as good as Jesus or maybe even more good, who walk amongst us. They must be stupid or perverts or psychologically screwed or whatnot - that they simply are saintly good could not be since they are here in this everyday reality with us and in that almost total blindness of every-day-ness miracles and saints simply do not exist.
Now, that this goodness is at the core of every human being if it is not perverted by this extremely evil society of business and power, is a thought that is so strange to most people that they don't even consider it. It is far easier to believe, for these people, that humans are evil and that it is society that prevents them to live out their evilness and, sure enough, if they are sufficiently poor they cannot but if they are sufficiently rich there are just no limits to the evil done and how could it be otherwise, when a person defends it as being right to have a million times more than another person for surely he can then not look at that other person as his loved brother or sister and instead look at that other person as being a cockroach and who cares what you do to a cockroach, right?
Yes, among the poor you may find Jesus or God, if you like, if you look past every-day-ness and films like this one helps you do that. Other films by the Dardenne brothers are however even better at it so this one only receives the vote 6.
All their films are tragedies, heartrending tragedies were it not for the everyday feel of all of them. We do not recognize the tragedies in our midst because everyday reality is so overwhelming that it blurs everything. We equally do not recognize the people who are as good as Jesus or maybe even more good, who walk amongst us. They must be stupid or perverts or psychologically screwed or whatnot - that they simply are saintly good could not be since they are here in this everyday reality with us and in that almost total blindness of every-day-ness miracles and saints simply do not exist.
Now, that this goodness is at the core of every human being if it is not perverted by this extremely evil society of business and power, is a thought that is so strange to most people that they don't even consider it. It is far easier to believe, for these people, that humans are evil and that it is society that prevents them to live out their evilness and, sure enough, if they are sufficiently poor they cannot but if they are sufficiently rich there are just no limits to the evil done and how could it be otherwise, when a person defends it as being right to have a million times more than another person for surely he can then not look at that other person as his loved brother or sister and instead look at that other person as being a cockroach and who cares what you do to a cockroach, right?
Yes, among the poor you may find Jesus or God, if you like, if you look past every-day-ness and films like this one helps you do that. Other films by the Dardenne brothers are however even better at it so this one only receives the vote 6.