Jacques Audiard is a director who has proven that he can make fascinating movies. He made The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Un prophète and De rouille et d’os (Rust and Bone). All films which stood out and Un prophète is still one of my personal favourites. With Dheepan he won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes film festival which made me really look forward what it had to offer.
The movie is about a Tamil warrior (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) who after a huge defeat in battle, in which many of his fellow soldiers have died, decides to leave Sri Lanka. In order to do so he will have to get a new identity and a local dealer in passport of deceased people has three of them available, but they belong to one family. He will have to find someone who can pose as his wife and finds Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan). She frantically starts searching for a child in a refugee camp they can take with them and the three of them present themselves at the dealer. The man gets the name Dheepan and is able to live in France as a refugee. He starts out selling toys and roses on the streets, but eventually manages to get a job as a janitor in an apartment building.
However, that building is being run by a gan and although Dheepan and his “family” don’t stick their noses in their business the tension slowly increases, both between Dheepan and Yalini and with the local crime boss. With his past Dheepan has to fight his instinct to solve the issues in the only way he knows how, through violence.
Dheepan is a film which deals with current issues, as Europe has seen a lot of refugees fleeing wars. The main character is someone who has fought a lot but pretends he is someone else. He has trouble integrating and as people he knows from his past keep showing up his past haunts him which also is a big risk to his own safety. At the same time Audiard also shows how gangs have taken over neighbourhoods and making them virtually lawless. Rules don’t seem to matter and there is a constant danger that other gangs might attack.
This is character study which might feel slow to some, but it takes its time to tell personal stories and the drama these characters go through. In the last part of the movie Audiard unexpectedly shifts gear. Something which I really liked, but I can imagine some not liking the choice he made and think it doesn’t fit the film. I didn’t have an issue with it as it fit the character and what he had gone through. Probably not a movie everyone will enjoy, but which you should definitely should give a chance, especially if you were able to appreciate Audiard’s previous work.
Wasn’t familiar with this one but it sounds really intriguing. I did appreciate a lot of things in Audiard’s Rust and Bone. I’ll definitely look this one up.
Yeah, it is worth checking out!
Now this is a film that I want to see as not just as a fan of Jacques Audiard though I’ve only seen 2 of his films so far. It’s also in the fact that I’m kind of a completist as it relates to films that have won the Palme d’Or.