BELGIAN brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have the distinction of winning the Palme d'Or, the major prize at Cannes, twice in the past 10 years, for Rosettaand L'Enfant; only five other directors have received it twice in the history of the festival.
The brothers were winners at Cannes again this year, collecting the best screenplay award for The Silence of Lorna, although the movie's only significant flaws are a few startling but not entirely plausible plot twists.
As with their earlier work, The Silence of Lornais naturalistic in style and marked by their consistent concern for social outsiders, and it again expresses a bleak view of human nature. Lorna (Arta Dobroshi) is a young Albanian immigrant in Liège, where she has married a heroin addict, Claudy (Jérémie Renier), to obtain Belgian citizenship. To her, this is a business arrangement. Of necessity, they live together, in a small apartment where she takes the bed and he sleeps on the floor.
When Lorna's legal status looms and his payment is due, Claudy surprises her by going cold turkey, desperately struggling against temptation as his dealer persistently calls by the apartment and tries to get him hooked again. Meanwhile, the crook who arranged the marriage of convenience already has lined up a wealthy Russian as Lorna's next spouse.
The consequences are not as gripping or as emotionally wrenching as in L'Enfant, which remains the finest film from the Dardennes. However, The Silence of Lornais as uncompromising as we have come to expect from the brothers as they pursue their evidently heartfelt preoccupation with frailty, inhumanity and exploitation in the modern world. Tough as the film is, it yields moments of unexpected tenderness that are deeply affecting.
Renier, one of the finest young actors in European cinema, gives another indelible performance as the wreck of a young man Claudy has become. In the title role, Dobroshi, who is from Kosovo, demonstrates strong screen presence as she juggles the contradictions in her complicated character.
