Reality and Paternity in the Cinema of the Dardennes

Abstract

The Dardenne brothers’ filmic production aims at restoring the missing link between human beings and the world that has been progressively undermined during the ultimate development of late-capitalist society. This contribution deals with their search for a new contact with reality and a concrete belief in the world, focusing on the theme of body and paternity, in the epoch of their evaporation. However, in or¬der to rethink the paternal function in a post-political and post-ideological age, the Dardennes have had to radically come to terms with its ambiguity and oscillation be¬tween abandon and adoption, self-preservation and transmission, forgiveness and revenge. With regard to this ambivalence, this contribution focuses on two films by the Dardennes, La promesse (The Promise, BE/FR/LU/TN 1996) and Le fils (The Son, BE/FR 2002), which represent significant descriptions of what (the body of) a father is capable of, suggesting, at the same time, interruption and filiation as possible experi¬ences for a new beginning.

Keywords

• Dardennes
• belief
• immanence
• paternal function
• interruption