La Promesse

Rating:
Summary: Flat-out my favorite film of the 90s
Review: If you haven't seen this one, well... Its emotional impact on me was devastating. I saw it when it opened, and a friend and I, who are normally quite talkative after a good movie, walked at least two city blocks afterwards before either of us said a word. I compare it in style to "The Dreamlife of Angels" (hand-held cameras, naturalistic acting, a plot that unfolds gradually and builds to a harrowing finale, and no musical score) and in theme to, of all things, "The Apartment" (main character is waist-deep in wrongdoing but has a crisis of conscience that forces him to re-evaluate himself and his actions). Please find a copy somehow, or go ahead and spend the money here -- I don't want Amazon to get angry with me.

Rating:
Summary: Solid "slice-of-life" naturalistic drama
Review: Less claustrophobic than their later "Rosetta", "La Promesse" nevertheless has the same naturalistic feel to it. It looks like a documentary, and it tells an interesting and very human story in an interesting and plausible way. It is a rites of passage movie in many ways. Young Igor helps his father trade in illegal immigrants, and is completely under his father's control. Then one day he makes a promise to a dying immigrant to look after the man's wife and child. This promise changes his life forever. Despite its slim running time - just under ninety minutes - I must confess my attention wandered a little in the middle, but the acting is faultless, the direction unfussy and it's slice-of-life approach quite satisfying. The Dardenne brothers also manage to make Belgium look suitably bleak.

Rating:
Summary: Solid "slice-of-life" naturalistic drama
Review: Less claustrophobic than their later "Rosetta", "La Promesse" nevertheless has the same naturalistic feel to it. It looks like a documentary, and it tells an interesting and very human story in an interesting and plausible way. It is a rites of passage movie in many ways. Young Igor helps his father trade in illegal immigrants, and is completely under his father's control. Then one day he makes a promise to a dying immigrant to look after the man's wife and child. This promise changes his life forever. Despite its slim running time - just under ninety minutes - I must confess my attention wandered a little in the middle, but the acting is faultless, the direction unfussy and it's slice-of-life approach quite satisfying. The Dardenne brothers also manage to make Belgium look suitably bleak.

Rating:
Summary: Dark coming-of-age story
Review: Teenager Igor (Jeremie Renier) and his glum father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) run a business smuggling illegal aliens into Belgium. Once there, the aliens are at Roger's mercy, and he exploits this by stashing them in dilapidated buildings, charging phenomenal rent, and then squeezing them for extra money by charging for heating and false papers. This is all paid for by their labour--and most of the illegals also work for Roger on building sites. Roger uses Igor, who also works as an apprentice at a mechanic's shop, as a henchman. Roger demands and expects complete loyalty from his 15-year-old son. Igor watches as his father busts in doors demanding rent, shakes the aliens down for money, and even participates in a scenario in which Roger deliberately feeds some aliens to a police sting.

The film makes it clear that Igor is corrupted. He assists his father and is rewarded by goodies. Igor seems to leave any troubling moral issues behind as he races on his much-loved go-cart with other boys his own age. But when a dying alien exacts a promise from Igor that the boy will care for his wife, Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and child, Igor suddenly faces a moral dilemma.

"La Promesse" is a riveting and well-acted film. Igor, is at first, unaware that he crosses a moral divide when he begins assisting Assita. His help begins in little, barely noticeable ways. Igor simply wants to keep his promise to the dying man--he doesn't have any grand scheme in his head. The independent, suspicious Assista isn't very grateful, and Roger soon sniffs his son's growing humanity, and he reacts viciously. Events make the promise increasingly more difficult to keep, and inevitably, Igor has to make a moral choice. Igor has the look of a tough street urchin--thoroughly corrupted--or so it would appear--by a father who provides cigarettes and even prostitutes to his teenage son. Roger looks like a fairly harmless plump, not very bright, middle-aged man, but there's a raw brutality there, and his seeming lack of intelligence is the result of years of blunted emotion. "La Promesse" can be classified as a coming-of-age film, but Igor comes of age in a dark, bleak adult world. An excellent thought-provoking film--in French with English subtitles--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: a troubling but optimistic window into life
Review: This is an excellent film that manages to self-critique important issues in modern France; especially its past and present treatment of illegal immigrants. Would you be brave enough to defy the father in this film?

Rating:
Summary: a troubling but optimistic window into life
Review: This is an excellent film that manages to self-critique important issues in modern France; especially its past and present treatment of illegal immigrants. Would you be brave enough to defy the father in this film?

Rating:
Summary: Flat-out my favorite film of the 90s
Review: This is not a warm fuzzy picture by any means, but it is film for people who love people and appreciate the higher instincts of mankind that transcend nationality, race, gender, and age. Does one follow instinctual bonds to family, or honor and committment to a worthy promise.

I absolutely loved this film...and so did my Parisian friends to whom I recommended it.

Rating:
Summary: Best of 1998
Review: This is not a warm fuzzy picture by any means, but it is film for people who love people and appreciate the higher instincts of mankind that transcend nationality, race, gender, and age. Does one follow instinctual bonds to family, or honor and committment to a worthy promise.

I absolutely loved this film...and so did my Parisian friends to whom I recommended it.