Just left the Fargo Theatre is the just released Lorna’s Silence, a Belgian offering from Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Lorna’s won best screenplay at Cannes and was s 2008 Toronto Film Festival Selection. Pretty impressive credentials.
Before describing the movie, perhaps a little background is in order. Obne way to gain citizenship in, for example, the United States is to marry a US Citizen. There are actually people in the business of arranging such “marriages,” often for Russians or other Eastern Europeans, but for others as well. Sometimes, one partner is able to convince an American to actually marry hin/her for love. Once in the US and a citizen starts screaming “spousal abuse” and calls the police. The idea is to now that he/she is now a citizen, a quick divorce would free them from the constraint of marriage. As improbable as it sounds, I know somebody this actually happened to. It didn’t work our for the new American, however: even the Fargo police are onto this scam.
Lorna is about the same sort of situation, only in Belgian. In order to obtrain money for her and her boyfriend(Alban Ukaj) to open a coffee shop, Lorna(Arta Dobroshi) agrees to marry a Russian with deep pockets that is willing to pay dearly for Belgian Citizenship. The underworld figure arranging all this, Fabie. played sleazily well by Fabrizio Rengionie. The only problem is thet Lorna has already married the drug addicted Claudy(Jereme’ Remer) who Fabie and Lorna expect to die soon. Problem is, he decides to clean himself up, thus throwing a monkey wrench into the marriage with the Russian. I’ll leave the story at this point, but I’m sure you can already guess that it is not about Sunday picnics and walks in the parki. It is about the underbelly of humanity, but portrayed without malice, just starkly.
Arta played Lorna stoically, and I never knew just what her agenda was. I found her quite attractive, if flat cheated, but she was very believable as Lorna. I had to feel for the mistreated Claudy, and for some reason did not out and out despise Fabie, but maybe I should have. Rengione plays him with all the zest that Al Pacino put into Scarface.
Alright, so the performances wee good, the portrayal of that particular part of the Belgian underworld apparently accurate. Of course, some of these players are not out and out sociopaths, or else there wouldn’t be a story. But should you see the movie? I don’t know. I was not particularly impressed, but perhaps that’s because it had no shock value for me. Except for the subject matter, for which a drug lord could have replaced Fabie, there wasn’t anything new here for me.
Not much action: there usually isn’t in indie’s. If you like movies about the underworld, like the drug culture for example, then you’ll probably like this. If you want romance, comedy, car chases or science fiction, there’s none of that here.
Acting: B+
Story: B-
Relevance: B+
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