Almayer's Folly: Clash By Night

Almayer’s Folly

Directed By: Chantal Akerman

Written By: Akerman, based on the novel by Joseph Conrad

Starring: Stanislas Merhar, Aurora Marion, Mar Barbe, Zac Andrianasolo, Sakhna Oum, and Solida Chan.

Director of Photography: Raymond Fromont, Editor: Claire Atheron

            The key moment in Almayer’s Folly is one of luminescent beauty, though oddly without any emotion. Set in the Cambodian jungle, our protagonist Almayer watches as a boat, lavished in bright colors floats across a black river toward his dock. Writer and director Chantal Akerman immediately distances this moment from any tension by revealing in a third person voice over the reason for their visit, as well as the outcome, none of which we see. Akerman thus allows the camera to view the moment in its tranquility.

            Since her debut feature Jeanne Dielman became the most widely cited and critically acclaimed film by a female director ever made, Akerman has often dipped into very different works, often changing and revising style over the years. But she has always been a formalist filmmaker with an assured vision, which comes across in the intellectually demanding Almayer’s Folly, a new work loosely based on the Joseph Conrad novel exploring post-colonial tensions in Southeast Asia. It’s an allegorical story between a father and a daughter and between whiteness and blackness, one that slowly and rigorously examines a world in which the physical borders between both spaces and individuals are still quite intact.

The Kid With A Bike: A Coming-Of-Bresson Tale

The Kid With A Bike

Written and Directed By: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Starring: Thomas Doret, Cecile de France, Jeremie Renier, and Ego Di Mateo

Director of Photography: Alain Marcoen, Editor: Marie-Helene Dozo, Set Designer: Igor Gabriel

            The first thing I noticed in The Kid With A Bike was how far back the camera was. We’re quickly introduced to 10-year-old Cyril, desperately searching for his father. A phone call results in a disconnected number. He escapes the foster home, running on foot, and taking a bus to his father’s old apartment, dodging the guardians after him. But unlike the extremely memorable opening of a film like Rosetta, the Dardenne brothers hold the camera further back and less kinetic than usual. We aren’t given immediate connection with Cyril in this matter, partially because his conflict is only immediate to him, but more importantly because we have to learn to love Cyril as the film’s other protagonist, Samantha, must. And learning to give into such grace and accept with love is many ways the message suggested in The Kid With A Bike.

            For those who don't know the Dardenne brothers, their first narrative film Le Promesse premiered at Cannes in 1996, and since then they’ve (deservingly) won a prize for each of their subsequent films. However, some have outrageously claimed their similar aesthetic has become tiring and cumbersome. “Look, another film about suffering in Belgium!” their critics antagonize at them, as if other auteurs have broken so far from  their own comfort zone. But to reduce the Dardennes is to reduce the way they have slowly evolved their style, especially from something more unyielding at L’Enfant. Lorna’s Silence took the form of a gangster thriller thrown through the prism of their unflinching eyes. The Kid With A Bike takes the form of a fairy tale in many ways, except there’s nothing of particular miracles on the way, simply moments in which we experience true human empathy.