Lorna’s Silence – Dardenne Brothers (2008)

The latest film from the Dardenne Brothers is an understated study of alienation that reminded me a lot of Remains of the Day and Casablanca. (Not to give this film delusions of grandeur.)





"Lorna's Silence" starts with our heroine, Lorna, who is a profoundly unhappy woman. We don't know what her situation is, but she exudes miser in every frame she appears in.


Lorna has married a Belgian junkie for a green-card and the plan, as it's slowly revealed through the course of the film, involves killing the junkie with an overdose and side-stepping the whole mess of a divorce.

The plot is incidental, though. In fact, we’re not ever fully sure what the story is. We know the plot involves a green-card and a Russian who for some reason needs to establish residency in Belgium.

He's a very ominous figure. We only hear to him referred to as "The Russian."

The focus of the film is the isolation of Lorna.

Slowly, she finds herself attached to Claudy, her junkie fake-husband and gets to work on a plan to save his life. Of course, she can not tell him why she is doing all of this.

She doesn’t want Claudy to know his life is in danger and she stays silent.

Lorna is so stoic that it’s near impossible to tell just how deep her feelings for Claudy go or how they’re progressing until finally, one night, her actions leave no room for misunderstanding.

This is the first spark of happiness or even humanity we have seen in Lorna. This junkie has actually brought her to life.

There is an unspeakably beautiful moment that you’ll miss if you blink. It has no significance and only last a second or two, but it’s so tremendously effective.

Lorna and Claudy, her recovering, junkie, fake-husband, have just left a locksmith/pawnshop.

She is off to work and he is going to ride his bike all day to keep his mind off his withdrawal.

They split up and he starts to ride away.

Lorna, who’s been pretty cold to Claudy so far and showed no emotion at all, until the previous night, and is now falling for him, spontaneously turns and chases after him for a few yards.

It is a desperately joyous little moment as she runs after him for two seconds before turning to walk her own way.

It last three or four seconds, but it says so much about the transformation of her feelings toward this man she just met and had thought of, only days before as expendable.

And the way that The Dardenne Brothers cut from this burst of unexpected joy to the aftermath of heartbreak reminds me of what sets these filmmakers apart from others and why I loved Rosetta so much.

(I’ll be re-watching that very soon, I think.)





Of course, people who build up walls around themselves do so for defensive purposes and once those come down, Lorna is incredibly vulnerable.

Her strength was in the fact that nobody knew her.

The film ends ambiguously, but if you ask yourself, ‘What’s likely to be the next thing to happen to Lorna?’ you probably won’t come up with a happy answer.

Isolation, that front that makes people think you don't need anybody else, might make you look strong, but it's a lie.

In reality, it just makes you lonely and weak.

That is what the Dardenne Brothers are saying here and the message comes across beautifully and breaks your heart.

Quote of the Day - Otis (2008)

"I thought your dad could cut his fingers and toes off and we could blend them into a smoothie and make him drink it." - Kate Lawson

Stay The Hell Home This Weekend! Boycott Repo!

Hey there, grave-robber. Can't get it up if the girl's breathing?

Miguel Sapochnik, you suck.

Forest Whitaker, I had to watch Ghost Dog to remind myself that I don't hate you, but you're on notice.

Jude Law, not even eXistenZ can save you. You're off my cool list.

Liev Schreiber, RZA and Alice Braga, bad bad bad. (And Ms. Braga, as an enormous fan of City of God and Blindness, it breaks my heart to say that.)

Now, everybody boycott the hell out of this rip-off Repo movie this weekend.

I’m fairly certain this lame-rip-off of a movie will not feature:

a) Anthony Stewart Head sticking his arm up a guy he just gutted and doing a ventriloquism routine with his hollow corpse.

b) A homicidal but irresistibly attractive Skinny Puppy lead singer.

c) Paul Sorvino singing with his best Italian fat guy opera voice.

d) Paris Hilton’s face falling off.

e) The little girl from Spy Kids all grown up and disturbingly hot.

f) The greatest rock and roll movie soundtrack since"Rocky Horror."

So go to your local Best Buy or WalMart or wherever and buy, don't rent from NetFlix, don't download it, but buy a copy of "Repo! The Genetic Opera."

And it's saying something about "Repo Men" when I'm advising you to visit your local WalMart rather than go to the movies, is it not?

"Repo! The Genetic Opera" is the real movie.

You will not be sorry.

Like a mop, or a broom.

No one likes a thankless job.

Eden Lake – James Watkins (2008)

Ladies and Germs, this is not your typical horror film.

You might be at WalMart, looking through their bargain bin or browsing through Blockbuster's previously viewed 5-for-$20 selection when you come across this title and think this is just another straight-to-video genre pic.

My God, you could not be more wrong.

Eden Lake has a very familiar plot but it manages to distinguish itself from the likes of Wolf Creek and other generic ‘lost-in-the-woods-please-somebody-save-us-from-these-sadists’ pics.

First, Kelly Reilly’s performance as the damsel in distress who shifts from victim waiting to be picked off to bad-ass ready to destroy these vicious bastards up is believable.

James Watkins knows how to build characters and tension in equal measure and that is a rare commodity these days.

Second, each member in the gang of punk kids has their own separate personality, which most screenwriters don’t bother with.

And the leader of the gang is unusually cruel, even for movies like this.

If you've seen Fernando Meirelles' City of God, you'll remember the sequence where one child forces his friend to kill his playmate. After eight years, that scene still unsettles me.

This is the kind of cruelty I'm talking about. It's that kind of sadism present in Eden Lake.

And lastly, the film is actually saying something about the complicity of inaction.

The two most disturbing sequences in the film come when the leader of the gang makes everyone take the knife to one of the victims, though it’s clear most of them don’t want to.

It’s equally clear that those who want out could easily overpower those who want to keep going, but they don’t.

The second very chilling sequencing is the last when our heroine stumbles onto the parents of these kids.

Having said all of this and giving this film a great deal of credit, I’m not sure if I actually liked it or not. I am pretty sure I did not enjoy it.

However, it certainly stuck with me and giving me the satisfaction I wanted by seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance by meeting a grizzly and bloody certainly would have been gratifying, but it would have undermined the whole point of the film.

I do recommend it, though, but only for fans of either horror movies, art films or, ideally both.

There are elements of both Lord of the Flies and Wrong Turn (how’s that for a combo?) here.

Expect to be haunted for a few days after watching it.

Maybe have something like "Superbad" on deck to watch if you need to get the taste of this one out of your brain.

Because for the record, the end of this film is almost as devastating as the end of George Romero's original Night of the Living Dead.

And, just in case you care, I'm listening to