Dheepan

Genre: social drama

With: Jesuthasan Antonythasan (‟Dheepan”), Kalieaswari Srinivasan (‟Yalini”), Claudine Vinasithamby (‟Illayaal”), Vincent Rottiers (Brahim), Faouzi Bensaïdi (Mister Habib), Marc Zinga (Youssouf), Bass Dhem (Azziz), Nathan Anthonypillai (the Interpreter), Vasanth Selvam (Cheran), Kartik Krishnan (the complicit civil servant in  Sri Lanka)

Director: Jacques Audiard

Screenplay: Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré and Jacques Audiard

Release: 2015

Studio: Why Not Productions, Page 114, France 2 Cinéma

Rating: R

MBiS score: 8.4/10 

 

‟Lord Gamesh, spare us misfortune and make us live a good life here.” 

 

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Story-line: in war-torn Sri Lanka, three complete strangers – a soldier fed up with combat, a woman from a refugee camp and a young orphan – are given new identities as a family – Dheepan, Yalini and Illayaal Natarajan – and allowed to flee their homeland. Although Yalini hoped to join her cousin in England, the trio ends up in France, a country outwardly bursting with promise… but where immigration rules, social issues and the necessities of life are as challenging as they were back home.

Pluses: brave performances by Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan and Claudine Vinasithamby, good support from a competent cast (Vincent Rottiers especially), masterful, economical direction, a hard-hitting and observant screenplay, superb cinematography in all kinds of settings – some of them very unusual –, authentic-looking production values, a varied musical score and a potent ending.

Minuses: some reviewers have considered the third act a bit extreme and I partially agree.

Comments: when the hellish but formidable DHEEPAN was picked as the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes in 2015, director Jacques Audiard couldn’t be more pleased : ‟To receive a prize from the Coen brothers is exceptional… There's only the Dardenne brothers [that could match it].” What more can I say about this beautifully-rendered drama about immigrants trying to find their place in our ruthless Western world? 

 

MBiS 

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