Customer Reviews

The Son

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a marvellous film. For me anyway, it constitutes a masterpiece. This is certainly not a film for anyone looking for easy excitement. As the central protaganist slowly comes to realise, meaning is something that reveals itself after a great deal of attentiveness and work. The meaning is in the attentiveness and patience to detail, and there is certainly plenty of detail in this finely crafted work. It is this description of the ordinary that constitues its deeply spiritual core. There is revelation at the end, but it is a quiet, understated yet realistic opening out to a greater awareness.

In a word, the film deals with such issues as anger, revenge, hurt, incomprehension, and maybe more importantly, it is a subtle study of the often mysterious workings of patience, understanding, love and forgiveness. The graphic on the DVD jacket foregrounds very well one of the central metaphors of this film, namely, that we all need to find, from somewhere, the grace and humility needed to carry one's cross through life. This is definitely a film to be savoured more than once.

With some staggery candid camerawork and next-to-none minimalistic soundtrack, which is no doubt rather demanding on the senses, The Son manages to lay a gruelling texture of moral dilemma and the intrigue that goes with it.

Olivier Gourmet plays a carpenter, with an uncanny ability to judge the metric distance between any two points on a board, perhaps a metaphor for his character's moral precision. (I have never seen Gourmet before, but if wins awards, I will know exactly why.)

This carpenter develops a liking to a younger apprentice. It's eventually revealed that this liking is linked to a tragedy in the past, that continues to cast a pall over several of the film's characters. I will not not dilvulge the exact nature of that tragedy, that'd spoil the enigma, but the film is relentless in outlining its ramifications -- the angst, guilt, confusion, and how the carpenter finds himself both drawn to and repulsed by the youngster.

The overall ambience of the film may be bleak and murky, but its pervasive human spirit is very rewaring for all the patience it demands. Not recommended for casual filmgoers, but a very meditative example of arthouse for the more discerning eye.

This movie is absolutely first-rate. There is not a speck of melodrama in it. Olivier Gourmet who plays the teacher is phenomenal. He's in every scene. He plays the emotionally shipwrecked father with great depth. There are no smiles, no frowns, no anger. You're never quite sure what retribution might happen. The ending is quiet and powerful.

For those interested in the craft of film-making, there are two lengthy, excellent interviews with the Dardenne brothers and with Olivier Gourmet. The DVD transfer is excellent; the subtitles are quite readable. There isn't a great deal of dialogue in the film, so reading the subtitles is no bother.

If you like serious films, this one is a keeper.

This is an excellent but sadly neglected French film.
The cast, Olivier Gourmet, as the Carpentry Teacher and Morgan Marinne, as his student, are routinely excellent.
As is the story and direction, by the Dardenne brothers who have come up with a strikingly original film.
The story, of Olivier, a Carpentry teacher who teaches teenage
offenders picks up when we learn that his latest student is responsible for the murder of Olivier's infant son in a robbery.
The convicted fellon, Francis, now being rehabilated with a trade, is a gentle, quiet boy, but all the same we view him threw Olivier's eyes, detached, ambivalent but with deep suspicion.
Does Olivier intend revenge or is he only seeking answers.
He becomes so close to the boy that Francis asks Olivier innocently, if he'll become his guardian.
The denouement of this movie, where the main two characters travel alone to a deserted timber yard, is wonderfully handled. It will keep you guessing right to the end.
A fantastic film, expertly produced, excellently acted.
The film is subtle but also absorbing. A real must see!

A film from Beigium directed by brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("Rosetta"). Like Rosetta, "The Son (Le Fils)" explores the emotional turmoil of the protagonist, and watching the process would be torment to some people. Still, great acting of Oliver Gourmet is so impressive that those fans who respect the realistic approach to human behavior will be satisfied with the end result.

Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) is working at a carpentry school, but when a new student Francis is sent to the class, he starts to act a little strangely. He is clearly interested in Francis, but he is also afraid of having it known by the others. But he still keeps on peeping at him from behind the wall, not knowing what to do with himself. But why?

The reason is revealed after 30 minutes (and if you don't want to know it, skip this paragraph). The fact is, Olivier knew Francis killed his son. Still. Olivier takes Francis as a new student, teaching the craft of carpenrty works. Laconic Francis (not knowing the identity of Olivier) begins to feel attached to the teacher, but ... what is Olivier really thinking about? Revenger? Forgiveness? Or he does not know his true mind either?

"The Son" goes on like this, without superfluous dialogues, shot with a hand-held camera. Each take goes on very long, sometimes several minutes without cut, and often the image is shot behind the head of Olivier, as if letting us share his viewpoint. Evidently the directors did thorough rehearsals before shooting, because each shot is realized with the calculated movement of camera.

But the real virtue of the film lies in Olivier Gourmet (seen also in "Read My Lips" and others), who gives a terrific acting full of nuance and emotion. The troubled mind of Olivier comes so natural onto the screen that you almost forgive the film's too arty attitudes (no soundtrack, for instance, like Dogme films). Frankly, I think that "The Son" is a kind of film that appeals more critics than to general audiences. But Olivier Gourmet's performance is a genuine one.

Director Luc Dardenne says that the film is partly inspired by the real-life murder case in Liverpool in 1993. Probably English people remember the case I refer to. As his comment shows, the film deals with an immediate topic in a unique way, and like reality itself, "The Son" is often ambiguous, which becomes the strength of it. Not my cup of tea, I admit, but still well worth watching.

This film may not be for you. If you like films where some guys outrun Uzi bullets and do other impossible heroic feats, then don't waste your time here. But if you have an interest in the potential of the medium to tell a story that cannot be told in any other way, then see it by all means.

This film is the most disciplined and cinematically told story I have ever seen. Its the closest thing to living vicariously through another media I have experienced. You must be patient. You must let the medium work its magic on you. This is a story that can be told in no other way. But trust it, and let it happen, and the payoff is very great. The film is an excercise in brainwave entrainment, mindwave synchronicity. By the end of the film you are breathing with the central protagonist, or holding your breath with him--wholly identified. Of course, it helps if you are a father, youself, but anyone who is someones child should be able to relate--and everyone has experienced loss, and everyone makes mistakes. After all, nobody's perfect. Pay particular attention to the noises in the film. The power tools, the banging of heavy wood, alternating also with the very real sense of quiet, still, aloneness. Prepare to be surprised.

The film goes beyond verisimillitude. As the story begins, you are learning about the central figure. You don't know who he is or what his point of view is, but you are learning. By the end of the film you know him so well that you are leaning forward in your seat straining to catch every nuance, feeling his ambivalence, his yearning, his grief, his buring. I ended up remembering the Fire Sermon of the Buddha. It has become a Zen Koan ripened and cracked open like a popped kernel of corn.

For--as the Buddha said:
"Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye -- experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain -- that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, and despairs.

"The ear is aflame. Sounds are aflame. Consciousness at the ear is aflame. Contact at the ear is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the ear -- experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain -- that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, and despairs."

This is a deeply experimental film whose second watching yields an entirely different perspective than the first--yet the first is the extra virgin pressing of the olives--it is the precious and rareified squeezing. Be careful not to ruin it by reading too many reviews--and shame on those critics who tell too much. Just see it.

What do we have here in this film? Face of guy in extreme close up. Back of guy in extreme close up. Back goes down stairs, which you sort of see in the background. Face goes up stairs. Down stairs again. Upstairs, the face goes. Face at home. Woman visits Face. Camera to her. Camera shaking. Camera to Face. Her again. Face again. SAY something already. Someone. Anyone. Extreme close up, all the time. Camera shaking. Felt ill, I did. Queasy. Nineteen minutes, and I could not bear a second more.

I love a good film and generally abhor effects flix that lack good writing, good dialogue and heart (like the Lord of the Rings series). Give me reality! But don't give me a home movie passing itself off as art, as with The Son.

This movie was poorly shot and insufferably paced. When people sit, they sit and sit and sit and sit. When they drive, they drive and drive and drive and drive. When they look, they look and look and look and look. Have these film makers never heard of editing? We get the point! Forty minutes into this cinematic water torture, I was thanking Hitachi for the Fast Foreword button on my remote.

It's no exaggeration to say that most of this film consists of the back of Gourmet's head (he really needs to get that growth behind his right ear looked at) and other shots taken inches from the characters' faces. The occasional long shot comes as blessed relief. It also seems the cameramen attended the Blair Witch school of cinematography (if it can be called that). The handheld videocam nonsense will have any person with an alimentary canal reaching for Dramamine or Ginger within minutes. It's a wonder I can type, as I'm literally reeling from motion sickness.

Suffice it to say that The Son is a story that any film maker who knows how to frame a shot and edit could have told in 40 minutes. It also has one of the most inconsequential endings of all time. Indeed, I rewound just to make sure the DVD hadn't skipped. Perhaps it really did skip--just as I should have skipped this pretentiously boring waste of time.

if you like this movie and gave it 4 to 5 stars, pls buy or rent the other wonderful (definitely) similar movie: 'dancer in the dark' to get the same shaky camera effect you like. but if you feel dizzy afterwards, don't blame me.