Our Children [A Perdre La Raison] - Movie Review

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

One of the most unsettling movies of the year, this sharply made drama shifts inexorably from blissful romance to something darkly horrific. It's so understated that it might alienate audiences who want everything carefully explained to them. But the problem is that we understand far too well why the story goes where it goes, and that makes it even more haunting.

Based on a true story, the film opens with a brief glimpse of a terrible family tragedy before flashing back to happier times. Now living in Belgium, Moroccan-born Mounir (Rahim) has a whirlwind romance with Murielle (Dequenne). After they get married, they move in with Mounir's friend Andre (Arestrup), a doctor who married Mounir's sister (Raoui) so she could get a European visa. As Mounir and Murielle have four children in quick succession, she struggles with their domestic situation, longing for a family home of their own. She even offers to move to Morocco to live near Mounir's mother (Belal). But Andre seems to have some strange hold over Mounir.

As the years pass, Murielle's quiet desperation grows inexorably, although the film's audience seem to be the only ones who notice. Dequenne's performance is a masterful depiction of submerged emotion as she struggles to quietly cope with Andre's passive-aggression and Mounir's cultural machismo. So as the tension rises, we react like her, clinging to happier moments and possibilities rather than face up to the raw facts. This wouldn't work as well as it does without the superior work from Rahim and Arestrup, who previously starred together memorably in A Prophet. They cleverly refuse to let their characters drift into any sort of stereotype.

Filmmaker Lafosse skilfully tells the story through Murielle's eyes, so we can't see all of the facts. Like her, we begin to doubt Mounir's stories of where he goes when he travels. And our suspicions grow about the nature of his relationship with Andre. It's only in the shocking final scene that Lafosse pulls back from Murielle's perspective, because by then we understand her a little too clearly and wish we didn't. Yes, this is masterfully confrontational filmmaking that doesn't let us rest easily on our own expectations and preconceptions. And in its careful depiction of one woman's fragility, it offers a vital, unforgettable lesson.

Rich Cline

Facts and Figures

Year: 2013

Genre: Foreign

Production compaines: Versus Production, Samsa Film, Les films du Worso, Box Productions, Prime Time, BNP Paribas Fortis Film Fund, Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), VOO, Vlaams Audiovisueel fonds, Belgacom, Le Tax Shelter du Gouvernement Fédéral de Belgique, Inver Invest, Fonds National de Soutien à la Production Audiovisuelle du Luxembourg, Eurimages, Canal+, Les Films du Losange, Filmcoopi Zürich, Media Programme of the European Community, O'Brother Distribution

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 4.5 / 5

Cast & Crew

Director: Joachim Lafosse

Producer: Jacques-Henri Bronckart, Olivier Bronckart

Screenwriter: Thomas Bidegain, Joachim Lafosse, Matthieu Reynaert

Starring: Tahar Rahim as Mounir, Niels Arestrup as André Pinget, Émilie Dequenne as Murielle, Stéphane Bissot as Françoise, Mounia Raoui as Fatima, Claire Bodson as La femme policier hopital, Jean-Charles Hautera as Professeur Maryns, Daniel Feis as Le pianiste, Baya Belal as Rachida, Redouane Behache as Samir

Also starring: Emilie Dequenne