By Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

I saw this remarkable, intense movie. A young couple, unemployed, he makes money with small crimes, they have a baby. It’s all her new sense of live and optimism, he is more distant concerned and focused on his business, the baby more of a burden and unresolved problem than an opportunity. As such he takes a chance one day to sell the baby for adoption on the black market before he realized what it means for his girlfriend and their relationship.

It’s a real life story with some dramatization, but very rich, sensitive, curious, precise, full of live and details. I had to see previous movies of the Dardenne brothers, i.e. ‘le fils’. A man working in a centre for psychological instable young boys. He’ s teaching them carpentry. It’s also a sort of retreat for himself. After his son was murdered his relationship with the mother broke, he’s struggling to find himself in this new situation. One day he realizes that one of the new applicants was the murder of his son, released from prison and on the way to reorganize his life. A tense relation between the two develops. Also a very moving, incredible wide facetted picture based on a rather simple story. The acting performances are outstanding.

So yesterday a saw another French movie, Ces jours heureux by Olivier Nakache/Eric Toledano. A journey of a school camp with everything you can think of: kids out of control with all their attitudes, misbehaviors, problems, fun etc., a group of young people organizing and managing the journey with their own interferences, intrigues, friendships etc. the authority in charge to supervise and of course complicated parents. It was a blockbuster, the smallest common sense. I thought it would be a quiet interesting subject, but there was too much of clichés at once to turn the film in a easy enjoyable comedy. At least there was a good actress, Marilou Berry which I remembered from ‘comme une image’, also an outstanding French movie (this one has no end).

I was wondering why I am hanging on these more than serious subjected films, some call them depressing. Sometimes I simply respond I am a cultural snob and I am proud of it. On the other side I truly believe the art of movie making is going out to the street, pick a handful of random bypassing people, learn about their lives and turn it into a film. I always try to read between the lines and I am disappointed if I can’t find anything.