Dheepan (2015)
Directed by Jacques Audiard

Film Review

Immigration looks set to be the theme of the decade for French cinema, and Jacques Audiard is the latest in a rapidly expanding line of French filmmakers to dive into this highly topical subject with his idiosyncratic mix of social drama and urban thriller Dheepan.  In his seventh feature in twenty years (the surprise winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015), Audiard opts for a more restrained style of filmmaking which allows him to focus our attention on the personal ordeals of the three central protagonists as they struggle to adapt to their new life in la belle France after fleeing a war zone.  These three are an ex-combatant (who 'stolen' name Dheepan provides the film's title), an independently minded woman and a stray girl badly in need of parental affection - strangers who formed a fake family in order to gain entry into France and who are bound together solely by the shared desire to find a way out of their personal hell.

Those who are used to Audiard's artfully stylised brand of cinema will be surprised by the comparatively mundane approach he adopts for Dheepan.  The film may not have the bravura visual artistry of the director's previous acclaimed pieces - Un prophète (2009) and De rouille et d'os (2012) - but it has a subtler form of lyricism and shows greater maturity in its probing of the human psyche and the depiction of fragile human relationships.  Portrayed by two remarkable and highly charismatic actors, the two central characters - Dheepan and his improvised wife Yalini - are strangers not only in a foreign land, but also to each other, and it is their awkward process of getting to know one another that is the truest and most touching part of the film.  The characters' inability to speak French is one of the few things that they have in common, and this adds to the tragedy of their situation, emphasising their isolation and crushed illusions.  Not only is France not the land flowing with milk and honey they had imagined, it is a country that is just as violent, just as divided as the one they have escaped from.

Had Audiard been brave enough to make this a straight down-the-line social drama, it could well have been his most accomplished film so far.  Unfortunately, the lure of the thriller was too great for Audiard to resist, and so the narrative soon finds itself being driven mechanically down a track towards a predictably explosive climax.  The countdown begins as soon as Vincent Rottiers is thrown in as a nasty drugs dealer who is too obviously intended to be Dheepan's personal adversary, and it's clear that the central character's combat experience is going to reassert itself (with a vengeance) before the closing credits start rolling.  As spectacularly realised as the final action sequences are, these seem to offer too easy a way of bringing the film to a neat resolution.  As if this is not bad enough, Audiard then slaps on a totally unconvincing coda which feels as if it was foisted on the film by its American distributors.  It's the kind of complacent filmmaking you might expect of a more cynical or less experienced film director, but for someone as well-regarded and inventive as Audiard it just seems like a lazy cop-out forced on him by the Cannes deadline.

The film's strengths (visual composition, acting, social relevance) are such that the implausible ending can be regarded more as a minor letdown rather than something that totally ruins an otherwise highly commendable film.  Principal among these is an extraordinary central performance from Antonythasan Jesuthasan, his first leading role in what looks set to be a highly promising screen career.  It's no accident that Jesuthasan is so convincing in the role of Dheepan - the character is almost a self-portrait.  In the late 1980s, he fled Sri Lanka, having fought in the war as a child soldier in the Liberation Tigers until the age of 19, and ended up in France, where he has since forged a very successful career as a novelist and playwright.  Not only does Jesuthasan have great presence and looks totally believable as the marginalised outsider, he also brings an incredible depth and humanity to his portrayal, which connects beautifully with that of his equally engaging co-star, Kalieaswari Srinivasan.  Some will doubtless watch Dheepan for its slickly handled action-thriller elements, but what makes the film worthwhile is the authenticity that the lead actors  bring to their performances.  Through their efforts, the film not only makes a compelling modern fable, it also gives us the starkest insight into the traumas of today's immigrants as they struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile environment.

Film Synopsis

In a refugee camp in the aftermath of the civil war in Sri Lanka, a former Tamil Tiger acquires not only a passport that gives him a new identity, Dheepan, but also a makeshift family, in the form of a young woman Yalini and a small girl Illayaal.  Strangers to each other, these three manage to flee the country together and end up in France, living on the outskirts of Paris on a rundown housing estate where Dheepan is given a job as a caretaker.  As Illayaal reluctantly starts school, Yalini begins working as a domestic for a disabled man, Habib, unaware that the latter's nephew Brahim is the vicious leader of a gang that deals in drugs.  Dheepan's decision to take a stand against the gang can only end in a violent confrontation...