(France,
115 min.)
Dir.
Jacques Audiard, Writ. Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré
Starring: Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan,
Claudine Vinasithamby
 |
| Jesuthasan Antonythasan (Dheepan) behind the car in Jaques Audiard’s Dheepan. Courtesy of Paul Arnaud. |
Dheepan finally hits theatres a year after its mildly
controversial win of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The hubbub
around Dheepan wasn’t one of sex, violence, or politics about its tale of
migration and Tamil Tigers, but rather one of merit. Did this new film from
Jacques Audiard really deserve the prize over hotly tipped critical favourite Sonof Saul, people asked.
The answer is easily, ‘Yes.’ While I prefer fellow Cannes titles Youth, Carol, and Sicario (this blog’s top three films of 2015), it’s a worthy winner. Dheepan, simply put, is a great film. It might not be on the same level as director Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet or Rust & Bone, both of which lost the Palme to Michael Haneke movies, but it’s a strong, significant film. This tiger roars.
Dheepan is an especially exciting addition to stories of
migration on film as it dramatizes the experiences of three Sri Lankans who
depart their homeland for a new life in the banlieues of Paris. Antonythasan
Jesuthasan stars as Sivadhasan who flees his violent life with the Tamil Tigers
and moves to Paris using the identity of a dead man named Dheepan. Antonythasan
is himself an escapee of the Tigers after spending years with the army as a
child soldier, so his performance singes with raw authenticity.
Dheepan’s partner in crime is an unnamed woman (Kalieaswari
Srinivasan) who takes the passport of the real Dheepan’s wife, Yalini, and
together they form a surrogate family with the aid of “Illayaal” an orphan in
need of a home (Claudine Vinasithamby). They speak little French, but Dheepan
gets a job as the caretaker of a shady suburban housing project. It’s La Haine territory,
for sure, as the property manager gives Dheepan more rules of the land than
tips on how to run the building that’s a breeding ground for bugs, drugs, and
thugs.
Dheepan, Yalini, and Illayaal trade violence in one nation
for gunfire in another. Their home in the project is a warzone in its own right
as competing factions of the underworld exchange fire with disregard for the
kids who play in the no man’s land between the towers. Even when Yalini gets a
job taking care of an elderly tenant, she’s in close quarters with his son,
Brahim (Vincent Rotters), a volatile gangleader who makes Dheepan a marked man
when he stands up to the violence that threatens the community.
Dheepan simmers with the scars of trauma as the title
character struggles to escape his violent past. Existing as a ghost figure with
a dead man’s alias, he’s also a member of a community that he longs to escape,
as the few Sri Lankans who share his language and culture in France want him to
continue the fight with the Tigers that he now rejects. Dheepan’s
post-traumatic marks of guilt and unchannelled anger find an outlet in
late-night bursts of binge-drinking and singing, which only compound the sense
of alienation he feels living in his strange city with a family he barely
knows.
Yalini’s life isn’t easy, either, as communication barriers
leave Dheepan and Illayaal her only companions. Neither one is a piece of a
life that she wants, though, for this surrogate family is simply a ticket to a
better existence that awaits once the “family” gets its papers and she can skip
town. Yalini’s own negotiation of this foreign life appears in her bizarre
relationship with Brahim, which develops gradually and tenuously as he
appreciates her spicy cooking during visits to his father’s home. They develop
a kind of cautious intimacy as they communicate through conversations of broken
French—and Dheepan quite effectively illustrates the barriers of language by
withholding subtitles at its discretion when characters encounter foreign
babble. Their shared presence, however, comforts Yalini despite the danger in
making Brahim her ally.
Antonythasan and Srinivasan both give remarkably strong,
understated performances for their film debuts, while young Vinasithamby adds a
layer of complexity to the family’s struggle. Audiard, despite being an
outsider to the experiences of these characters, lets the actors propel the
drama through the strength and depth of their characters. The film has the
rawness, grit, and sobriety that audiences recognise in an Audiard film, yet
it’s a brutally compelling departure from his body of work. The film culminates
in an explosive eruption of violence that evokes the finale of Taxi Driver as
Dheepan retaliates against the violence within the housing project. Dheepan,
machete in hand, confronts his own violent past in a riveting, white-knuckle
climax as he recognises the futility of a life lived by the sword.
Dheepan doesn’t sugar coat this story of migration as
Dheepan and Yalini work hard to forge new lives while discovering their new
selves in this new land. Audiard’s film conveys the multiplicity of stories
that exist within these communities and global cities as Dheepan and Yalini
live in a building that’s a microcosm of the world itself, full of stories like
their own told by people making similar journeys. The film shows how little one
can know about one’s neighbours and the migrants who help shape communities
into diverse worlds, as stories of the journey from one home to another go
untold and unasked.
Dheepan is now playing in Ottawa at The ByTowne and in
Toronto at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
