Anyone prefer Lorna's Silence to this film? This was a bit of a let-down
I've only seen two Dardenne brother films so far but I have to say that I enjoyed Lorna's Silence a great deal more than this film. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the actress who played Lorna was amazingly charismatic and well-versed in her craft while the actor who played Bruno seemed to be a one-trick pony who's range seemed to be grounded at "wounded puppy" level.
I found myself fast-forwarding through many of the endless travel scenes because after a while, they all asked you for the same thing: to contemplate the emotional state of the character. But their emotional state was already communicated to us effectively in any number of other scenes so it seemed redundant to keep asking us to revisit the same feelings over and over again in these long, drawed-out, dialogue-bereft scenes.
In Lorna's Silence, there wasn't anywhere near this amount of redundancy. Character development was done in such a way that was both effective and narrative-supporting rather than tacked-on in scenes that wouldn't have hurt the film one bit if they were left on the cutting room floor.
What I did like about L'Enfant though was the fact that if you take the title at face value, "The Child" was Jimmy. But once you watch the movie you realize that L'Enfant was really Bruno and it was only through his journey in this film that he realized it was time to shed his Peter Pan wings and start becoming an actual man. That's a story that resonates with me as I too had an extended adolescence which may be why I was expecting more from this film than was actually delivered.
Lorna's Silence will have to remain my favorite Dardenne film for now since, again, I've only seen the two.
Can anyone recommend another to me?