Jamie passion and passionfruit!

The minimalist style of the Dardennes of Belgium is much revered in the cinema critics world.  In this film from 3 years ago, not an awful lot happens but the attraction of the film is what lies beneath in the history of the main characters – a man whose young son was brutally strangled five years before and the murderer, a 16 year-old carpenter’s apprentice who has just been released from jail for serving his term for precisely that murder.  Olivier is the teacher at the centre for the apprentices and his willingness to take on the boy and somehow come to learn something about what led him to such a cruel act is basically the theme of the film.  Shot in a very personal style (the camera is often just behind the shoulders of the characters and tends to move about jumpily to match their state) the film is no picnic but it has a certain quiet dignity.  I am not sure that it is the great film some critics suggest but it is honest and sobering. 

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