The Kid with a Bike [Le Gamin au Vélo] (Dardenne Brothers, 2011)

[shariqq]

The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo)
Dardenne Brothers | Belgium | 2011
87 min

Though this is just the second Dardenne brothers movie I have watched (after the excellent Rosetta), it is easy to label these Belgian brothers as master directors. It takes an understanding of the art of film-making at the highest levels to make a movie so good about something as simple as what this movie is about. At once mesmerizing and emotional, the movie is about a 10-year old boy who refuses to believe but has to come to terms with the fact that his father has abandoned him. A hairdresser becomes his guardian, taking him home with her on weekends. The movie follows the boy as he deals with abandonment, and how he looks to anchor his life. He is a child, but it is fascinating to watch how everyone treats him, deals with him. The directors use the bicycle, the boy's one posession, as a metaphor for his innocence - but without ever making it obvious or deliberate. The boy's performance is natural, realistic and (having not read about him yet) probably very close to how he may be in real life. His dynamics with Samantha (the hirdresser) are easily the best parts of the movie. The film also focuses on some little moments, nuggets that build the emotional attachment the we share with the kid. This is one of those movies that is very good, and doesn't even have to try hard for it.

My Rating --> 4.5 of 5

[fizz]

A very good film from the ever dependable brothers. Their cinéma vérité style has reached a level of perfection, where its neither deliberate nor noticeable, just natural. In their usual fashion a deceptively simple story is packed with moments of realistic, social situations and some heightened moments of anxiety. The titular kid Cyril is played with nuance and determination by Thomas Doret, who has an aggressive approach to going about the search for a father who might have abandoned him. In the universe of the Dardenne, the situation is familiar. For those who know, the father (when he is found) is played by Dardenne's regular Jérémie Renier, who you may remember was the child who ran away from his father in the Dardenne's breakthrough 1996 feature La promesse, but he also played the irresponsible father (as an adult) in their 2005 masterpiece L'Enfant where he sold his baby for money to buy drugs. This gives the canon of the brothers world a cyclic, sisyphean quality. Not their best effort, but certainly worth a look.

Rating: Recommended.

[X.]

Rating: Recommended.

Loving it! The rating actually *clarifies* your review a bit more; adds a second dimension to it. For example, why did Fizz not rate it Highly Recommened? Probably because there was a nuance, a slight detail that kept him from absolutely adoring the film with mad love! He likes it a lot though!

P.S. You could totally strip the last line of your review, and the rating would work even more perfectly!

[fizz]

I agree about the last line. It was put there in case I have to reuse the text elsewhere without the rating (or for my personal records, where I don't include the ratings anyway).

[X.]

This is the first time the Dardennes have used music in any of their films, and it was part of their design. It was intended to, in their words, "to caress" the lonely little boy in his moments of need. None of their other films have non-diegtic sound, but they made an exception for THE KID WITH A BIKE.

[fizz]

I was a bit surprised to hear the "theme music" appear at different (pivotal) moments of the film. I understand what they are doing now that you mention it (caress the boy, provide catharsis, as most film scores do) but I was also taken aback while watching it. I felt they had....conformed to a widely used cinematic technique that almost all their previous efforts, without exception (as far as I can tell) had largely avoided.

[X.]

They said it was used only during moments when the boy needed it the most. It is my understanding (they would not answer this, even after being prodded) the technique was used for spiritual reasons, as an intervention from a source external to the world contained in the film. Let's just say I was shamelessly trying to impress them!