La Promesse, 1996
[The Promise]
There
is a childlike euphoria that comes over Igor's (Jeremie Renier)
face as he and his friends run a noisy, traffic-impeding go-cart
down the busy city streets. But Igor is far from the image of a
naive innocent oblivious to the ways of the world. At the age of
fifteen, he has left school, works as an apprentice at a service
station, and assists his father, Roger (Olivier Gourmet), in running
an illegal immigrant smuggling, housing, and construction racket.
The film opens to a revealing portrait of the underhanded, opportunistic
Igor as he steals an elderly woman's wallet under the pretense of
fixing her car, and then sends her away on a fruitless trip to recover
the missing item. After taking the money, he buries the wallet behind
the shop, and casually returns to the garage where he is learning
how to weld. His halfhearted attempt at an honest vocation is again
cut short, this time, by the sound of Roger's car horn, impatiently
summoning him to help "process" the latest group of illegal immigrants:
collecting their passports in order to forge residence and working
papers; renting out cramped and unsanitary rooms in a dilapidated
tenement for exorbitant fees; hiring them to work for substandard
wages at his construction business. Among the group is a woman named
Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) who, along with her baby, has come to
Belgium in order to join her husband Amidou (Rasmane Ouedraogo).
However, their reunion would prove to be short-lived. After receiving
a telephone call that officials are scheduled to conduct an inspection
at their worksite, Igor leaves the service station in order to outrun
the authorities and send the workers away. In his haste, Amidou
is critically injured when he falls from the scaffolding, and, in
his final words to Igor, asks the young man to look after his wife
and child. Fearing prosecution, Roger ignores Igor's pleas to take
Amidou to the hospital for proper medical attention and instead,
covers his body with canvas and leaves him to die. As Roger then
plots to send Assita away and figuratively bury the memory of their
shameful complicity, Igor finds his allegiance tested between his
devotion to his father, and his promise to a dying man.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne create a caustic, poignant, and harrowing
portrait of maturity, accountability, and sense of duty in La
Promesse. Shot in natural environment using cinema-verite
styled camerawork, the jarring, visually unpolished appearance of
the film reflects the raw, emotionally honest, and often disturbing
examination of the dehumanizing plight of illegal immigrants, and
a young man's evolution towards compassion and acceptance of personal
responsibility. As Igor hands over the keys to his beloved go-cart
to a friend, he not only relinquishes the vestiges of his childhood,
but also accepts the consequences of his culpability. Inevitably,
it is this triumph of the conscience - the courage to show humanity
in the face of intolerance and cruelty - that redeems his misguided
life.
© Acquarello 2001.
All rights reserved.
The
film opens with a chaotic scene: Rosetta (Emilie Dequenne), dismissed
from her station after her employment trial period has elapsed, refuses
to leave the factory, and is escorted off the premises by security
guards. Shot through a handheld camera, the confusion seems to continue
as we follow Rosetta as she crosses a busy intersection, makes her
way through the woods, changes into her water-repellent boots that
she hides in an exposed concrete pipe, and returns to her rented trailer
home that she shares with her alcoholic mother (Anne Yernaux). It
is a bleak life, and one that she desperately wants to escape. If
she could only find a job. But Rosetta is a resourceful young woman,
and remains undeterred by the latest setback. She returns to town
with a bagful of repaired clothes to be sold to the local thrift store,
and canvasses local merchants for job openings. Riquet (Fabrizio Rongione),
a waffle vendor, takes interest in Rosetta, and when the food preparer
is fired for absenteeism, he encourages her to apply. However, the
job proves temporary as well, as the owner (Olivier Gourmet) is compelled
to hire his own son. Without any new prospects, she sacrifices her
friendship with Riquet to obtain a job.