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The Son
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $26.99
Your Save: $ 2.96 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
Starring: Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart, Nassim Hassaïni, Kevin Leroy
Directed By: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781567303452
Format: Anamorphic
ISBN: 1567303455
Label: New Yorker Video
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2004-05-25
Running Time: 100
Studio: New Yorker Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2002
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Editorial Reviews:
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The brothers Dardenne craft lean, unfancy movies, full of ordinary people, with no special effects--but the emotional impact of their movies (which include the superb La Promesse and Rosetta) is devastating. In The Son, a carpentry teacher named Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) accepts a new student into his class after having first rejected him; it is soon revealed that this new boy, Francis, is responsible for the death of Olivier's son. But Olivier takes Francis under his wing--is Olivier planning on taking revenge? Is this a phenomenal act of compassion? Is he simply tormenting himself? The movie watches Olivier engage in his daily tasks without comment, yet every scene is almost unnervingly dense with emotion (it's no wonder that Gourmet won the Best Actor award at Cannes for this performance). The Son builds complex and potent feelings from utterly mundane moments. It's simply an astonishing feat of moviemaking. --Bret Fetzer
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The new kid
Comment: Schlumpy Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) is a carpenter who works for a school, where he apprentices teen boys who have recently been released from juvenile detention. He's a bit of a taskmaster and perhaps a bit harsh with the boys. When he's asked to take on a new boy (Francis, played Morgan Marinne), he flatly refuses. However, he is soon following the boy around and seems to know him somehow. Who is this boy and what is the connection to Olivier? The answer is slowly revealed through a serious of revelations. Along the way, we get to know Olivier and his habits; he's meticulous and clearly overly controlled, which could lead to some problems.
"The Son" is a superb but slowly paced film. Belgian directors and brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("L'Enfant") rely on handheld digital cameras, which really works for this small story. At times, it feels as though we're breathing down the characters' necks. Although this character-driven drama could hardly be considered a "thriller," it manages to really ratchet up the tension. Specifically, Olivier is so internal and tightly wound that the audience has no idea how he will resolve his issues with this new boy. The ending of the film is breath-taking, although the final denouement is perhaps not as cathartic as some might like. The pace and lack of obvious resolution may turn off some viewers (as reflected by some of the reviews here), but I was mesmerized. This ambiguous gem is a real winner.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Forgiveness or Revenge? 3.5 Stars .....
Comment: Olivier, a wood shop teacher reluctantly takes on a new pupil, only to find that the kid is one who murdered his own son years ago. The apprentice is blithely unaware of this background, after having spent 5 years in a juvenile center. He looks up to the teacher as a trade tutor and even asks him to become his guardian.
As Olivier drives the two of them out to a remote lumber yard, the viewer wonders what impulse will prevail - revenge or forgiveness. This is a suspenseful movie that may not be everyone's cup of tea, due to the flat expression of the main character and the lack of a tidy resolution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: WTF?
Comment: Wow, this was soooo boring. Very misleading how the DVD case said "SUSPENSFUL!!" Where? I saw NO suspense! Again the acting? Why was the acting praised, anyone can walk around with the same blank look throughout a movie. I watched this movie waiting and waiting for something good to happen...then the credits rolled. WTF? I was hoping that this movie was like "Dancer in the Dark", the shaky camera angles and the laboriously boring dialogue I hoped would then tranform into something even mildy entertaining. As was "Dancer in the Dark". No such thing happen with this garbage. I recommend this to noone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Redemption . . .
Comment: This Belgian film tells a story of grief and redemption as a teacher in a vocational training center takes on a young student, who is just released from prison, to teach him the fundamentals of carpentry. We watch for a half hour a kind of cat and mouse game between the two of them before we discover the reason for the teacher's initial reluctance to take on the boy as a student and his reticence about the choice he's made. Divorced and living an isolated existence, the man (Olivier Gourmet) seems deadened by whatever has happened in his life, his face an expressionless mask as he goes about the tasks of the day, always in his carpenter's pants and his leather back support - like someone trapped.
Choosing to be the boy's teacher, he embarks on an unlikely attempt to recover the life that has been robbed from him, and what he begins is a process of redemption both for himself and the boy. The film - shot with handheld camera in a cinema verite documentary style - is demandingly unconventional in the way it tells its story, leaving us for long periods in the dark about what we are watching, then revealing volumes in sudden unexpected bursts of dialogue. Inspired by the murder of a small boy by two older boys in England in the early 1990s (as explained by the Dardenne brothers in a DVD interview), the film explores extremes of emotion - rage and grief - and it offers a brave vision of resolution and recovery.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Son
Comment: This stark, unnerving drama by the esteemed Dardenne brothers skirts the themes of reckoning and vengeance without committing fully to either one, yet it packs a mighty emotional punch. In a brilliant, haunting performance, Gourmet plays an ordinary tradesman whose motivations, like his emotions, are completely unfathomable: Is he planning to reform Francis, or kill him? With the Dardennes' tight, handheld camerawork, we are immersed in the claustrophobic, indecipherable world of Olivier's body language, and the effect is chilling. Once "The Son" gets you in its vice grip, it doesn't let go.
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