Two Days, One Night.

Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have always produced films that have a strong connection with their audiences, films like The Kid with a Bike (2011) or The Child (2005) and their latest film is no exception. Two Days, One Night (2014) is a movie about solidarity, industrial relations and the right to work. Surprisingly bearing in mind it’s a depressing wee story and one that doesn’t vary much from scene to scene, it’s a movie that hold’s your attention.  

 

Sandra's supportive husband Manu.

Sandra Bya (Marion Cotillard) is a wife and mother and has been suffering from depression and has been off work for some time. She is now ready to return to Solwal, a company that makes solar panels. In her absence her 16 workmates have been balloted by her boss who has given the staff the choose between allowing Sandra back or receiving a bonus of €1000 each and letting her go. The majority has voted for the bonus! Assisted by her workmate Juliette (Catherine Salee) and her supportive husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione) she sets out over one weekend to try and persuade her remaining workmates to reverse the decision when her boss announces that he is allowing a new ballot is to take place on Monday morning. We follow Sandra as she painstakingly approaches each workmate and tries to change their minds over two days and one night. Most of them have their reasons for wanting to accept the monetary reward and thereby knowingly putting the working class Sandra and her family in dire financial straits’.

 

A future ballot is to take place.

The directors, who also wrote and produced the film, got their idea from various newspaper articles about similar situations when authoritarian bosses proposals challenged low paid workers solidarity. Since 2008 the recession has got deeper with in-work poverty becoming worse, and full time jobs becoming ever more scarce and harder to hold onto with zero hours contract becoming more widespread. It’s easy for workers like Sandra to loose faith and feel pretty worthless, scared of life and gradually loosing their confidence. It’s commendable to see directors like the Dardenne Brothers tackle problems of this austerity-ridden age and big stars like Cotillard supporting their endeavors. Even the film industry it self has recognized this with many plaudits and award nominations for this rather exceptional piece of work.

Daughters of Darkness.

Referred to as psychological high gothic, Daughters of Darkness (1971) is a Belgian horror film with English dialogue that has, like many other films, gained a cult status over the years and is still shown as part of late night movie programmes.  Directed by Antwerp born Harry Kumel, this sophisticated lesbian vampire movie stars Delphine Seyrig who elegance on screen is matched by very few actresses.

The newly weds telephone Stefans 'mother'.

Daughters takes its inspiration from the legend of Hungarian countess Elisabeth de Bathory who is alleged to have been the most prolific female serial killer in history. Known as the Blood Countess, she was accused of torturing and killing over 650 girls though the number she was convicted of was only 80! Said to have bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth she was subsequently bricked up in a set of rooms where four years later, in 1614, she died.   

The Countess makes herself at home.....

..... along with her young assistant.

A recently married young couple book into the luxurious Grand Hotel des Thames in Ostend. Valerie (Danielle Quimet) is young and beautiful but a little naïve where as Stefan (John Karlen) we learn has sadistic tendencies, and strangely when he rings his mother in England to inform her off his marriage we discover that he is talking to a rather effeminate male! Joining them at the deserted hotel is the mysterious Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Seyrig) who is accompanied by her voluptuous young female assistant Ilona Harczy (Andrea Rau). The Countess immediately forms an attraction to the young couple and as night falls events take a turn for the bizarre.

Becoming ever closer to the young couple!!!!

There is no hiding the fact that this is a visually stylish movie. We may not get a blood bath involving 650 virgins but what we do get is an erotically charged example of European horror at its best, superbly filmed it manages to highlight the decedent grandeur of its main location. A fascinating atmospheric film that really holds your attention with Delphine Seyrig stealing ever scene she’s in and I for one was unable to take my eyes of her.

The Kid with a Bike.

Samantha and Cyril search for his father.

We have reached the final film for this seasons Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club. It started back last September with a well-received showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and ended this week with The Kid with a Bike (2011). In between, the season has had its highs and lows. Each of us would no doubt have their favorites. My personnel top feature films would be The Skin I Live In (2011) Drive (2011) My Week with Marilyn (2011) Shame (2011) The Lady (2011)and Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (2011) My prize for the most original film would have to go to Johnny Daukes The Acts of Godfrey (2012), which was also the most enjoyable evening. We also had a selection of documentaries the two best in my humble opinion would have to be The Interrupters (2011) and Girl Model (2011). The best film of the season? We Need to talk About Kevin (2011) for which Tilda Swinton should have won an Academy Award for Best Actress and Lynn Ramsey for Best Director.

The angry boy in red.

Man of leisure Brendan Kearney was our host for the evening and opened his introduction with a question “what was Belgium best known for”, and it was probably not films, I thought chocolate which gave me food for thought. Apparently the country has two distinct languages, the Dutch speaking majority and the French-speaking minority and its cinema has been thriving. Audience attendance for local films, especially Dutch speaking releases have grown considerably.  When you look into this its quite surprising how often Belgium has been involved with many of the films I have seen including The Devils Double (2011) Potiche (2010) Ae Fond Kiss (2004) Amer (2009) Calvaire (2004) Days of Glory (2006) L’Enfant (The Child) (2005) Looking for Eric (2009) Outside the Law (2010) Private Property (2006) Seraphine (2008) and of course A Kid with a Bike (2011).

Let me say at the outset that the this film is nowhere near as sentimental as the poster would have you believe, in fact it could be a British social problem film from a director the like of Basil Dearden, Ken Loach (Kes 1969), Lynn Ramsey (Ratcatcher 1999) or even Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank 2009) to name but a few. 

Directed, produced and written by the Belgium born brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne their latest offering is accentually an unconditional love story about trust between the single young hairdresser Samantha and Cyril, a dejected young, tightly wound, pre-teen boy who has lost his mother, grandmother and has been abandoned to a children’s care home by his father who has also sold the boys beloved silver forked bicycle. Its when Cyril realises that his father has moved from the estate where they lived without leaving a forwarding address that things begin to turn nasty. Like a fairy godmother of old Samantha agrees to have the boy at her own home for weekends, helps him search for his father and buys back his bike. In the process she falls out with her boyfriend when he asks her to choose between him and the boy she chooses the rather wayward Cyril.

Certainly not a sentimental movie.

The film stars the very attractive Belgium actress Cecile de France as Samantha who you would of seen recently in Clint Eastwood’s 2010 supernatural drama Hereafter as well as many French movies including Switchblade Romance (2003) Singer (2006) Orchestra Seats (2006) A Secret (2007) and Mesrine (2008). In his debut feature film eleven-year-old Thomas Doret gives a very good performance as the vulnerable Cyril, certainly a name to watch out for. Cyril’s irresponsible father Guy is played by another well known Belgium actor Jeremie Renier (Potiche 2010, Summer Hours 2008 The Child 2005)

Cecile de France was the Dardenne's first choice for Samantha.

The Dardenne brothers have been quoted as wanting to make a film about a women who helps a boy emerge from the violence that holds him prisoner, change the word violence to anger and you have the film in a nutshell. They also for the first time combined the use of music to help the story unfold and a cracking straightforward naturalistic story it is, with no diversions, and no sub plots. Although, be warned gentleman, its another film where men are second bested by the female characters, Samantha, the Children’s Panel Chairperson and Guy’s boss, all seem better equipped to deal with ‘life’. A very good film choice to end our season and hopefully I will see you all in July for the Darren Conner Commemorative Evening.