One very weak effort.

you love french cinema? well this is belgian cinema... and take it from a belgian... we have a strange way of moviemaking... but I think it's great!!

Mediocre??? This was the best new film I saw in the whole of 2006!!! Wondrefully involving, redemptive, truthful, etc. Have another look, you might just change your mind!

As Jean-Luc and Pierre Dardenne's 1999 Cannes laureate Rosetta suggested a Marxist remake of Bresson's Mouchette, so their second Palme d'Or triumph, L'Enfant, revisits Bresson's more abstract Pickpocket in its saga of crime and punishment. L'Enfant is structured as a series of tasks, culminating in a chase that, both metaphoric and intensely physical, is also an agonizing descent into the depths. Above all, this is an action film—or better, a transaction film. It's not just that the Dardennes orchestrate an exciting motor scooter purse-snatching and a prolonged hot pursuit. L'Enfant is an action film because every act that happens is shown to have a consequence.

To compare this film to 2046 is like apples to oranges - one is a pure arty-farty fantasy with lots of bells and whistles, pretentious visual-audio sensory overload, the other is a gritty no-frills cinema verite in the tradition of The Bicycle Thief.

the emotional content in this movie is amazing
and the personality of the characters
I just love it *o*!!

is not a mediocre movie, not all the directors can make you really feel the emotions involves in a movie
that's the magic =)

I didn't see yet "4 luni, 3 spatmani si 2 zile" ('4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days') the big winner prize from Cannes in 2007, but i know that I liked the winner from 2006 ("The Wind That Shakes the Barley") - that movie is a very good biopic and a great lesson of history.

"L'enfant" seem too way ammateurish and I didn't buy the tragedy of the two young parents.

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I just don't know where I am with Cannes Palm D'Or winners anymore. I'm looking at my DVD box here: "more than a masterpiece" "the most exciting, emotionally complex, and incredibly acted film you're likely to see all year". I'm about to email British Trading Standards for false advertising.
It's been a long time since I watched a film that was so directorially listless, dull, and uninspiring. I suppose because the two leads cry at each other, with no dialogue, for two minutes at the end, that that is in some way meant to make up for the complete lack of emotional depth I'd had to sit through: it simply won't wash.

I'm a great fan of European cinema, but that film's almost universal praise galls me, and kind of shocks me, too. It's made me scared of watching another well-prized film again. The central conceit of child selling looked boring (and is, by the way, resolved a third of the way into the movie) from the outset, but then the childishness between the two leads blossomed, and then...and then...NOTHING ELSE. The guy's a crook and doesn't really think about changing - even AFTER the baby selling incident - and in fact only does so when it's so beyond doubt he's going to get caught by the police, and also conveniently gets him out of paying back his debt to the gangsters! How noble. The morals of this film are so vague and basic, I hate watching a film and afterwards think 'my life hasn't been enriched in any way whatsoever'.
I don't really care about 'likeable characters' and all that baloney, but surely the first invenstment you make in a movie is caring about its outcome and how it affects the characters?!

The point at which I realised I hated his film was the farting episode. Yes, you read that right, the farting episode. The two characters are waiting for someone, and one of them farts. The other then laughs. End of scene. Now we already know the two are mates, there is no extra comaraderie struck up here, it's just a really base, cheap laugh, that Euro cinema constantly crows about the evils of (eek! whisper it...) Hollywood. Imagine you're watching a Will Ferrell movie and someone makes a fart joke. You roll your eyes and complain: rightly so! Then, on top of that, I realised I didn't care if he threw the baby in the bloody river.

There's almost zero character arc in any of them. 'She' seems a bit of a slapper, and sometimes hates him, sometimes loves him, whatever is most convenient for the scene at hand. 'He' is a stupid thief who can't stop wasting money and getting in trouble, and whenever he has a chance at redemption, blows it. As stated above, he only gives up when he knows there's nowhere else to go.

I'll never see another Dardenne Bros movie ever again. European cinema deserves better than this tripe. And the script is so dull! Totally lacking any invention or insight. "OOh, but it's the fact that HE'S the child of the film." Yeah...and...so...what? That doesn't make it interesting or profound.

I've really no idea why this film has pissed me off so much. I just got through watching it about ten minutes ago, so maybe I'll have cooled towards tomorrow. I very much doubt it.
2/10