DHEEPAN – Review

Is it ever truly possible to escape one’s past? Can you really alter the course of your life and begin again, fresh and brand new?  Does despair and violence stick to your soul, much like gum on the bottom of your shoe (the Warrens used this metaphor to great effect in the original CONJURING when talking about demonic presences)? Many films have pondered this questions over the years, everything from STRAW DOGS to FIRST BLOOD to THE UNFORGIVEN. This new work adds a few twists to this idea, including culture clashes, and living a lie in order to deceive the authorities. At the story’s center is a desperate stranger in a strange land, a man named DHEEPAN.
The story begins at an ending, the ending of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. After torching a pile of bodies, one tired Tamir fighter takes off his “camo” and wearily puts in his “civies”. Cut to a dusty refuge camp as a woman in her twenties frantically searches for an orphan child, any orphan child. Scooping up a nine year-old girl, they charge into a tent where a man sits at a desk piled high with passports. That same “freedom fighter” is there too. They’ll need one of those passports to escape the country. Luckily the three can pass for a family killed in the conflict. The three strangers are now one unit headed by father Dheepan ( Jesuthasen Antonythasan), mother Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and daughter Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby). Later at the crowded harbor, Yalini is surprised to learn that they will be re-locating to France rather than England (where she has a relative). In Paris, Dheepan ekes out a living by selling cheap, glow-in-the-dark nicknaks to tourists (and scurrying away when the authorities bear down). Yearning for a better life, he signs up at a job placement center. They place him as a caretaker/janitor at a run-down multi-building apartment complex in the suburbs (his “family” will live there with him on site). All is promising except for one building, “D”, which has been taken over by a gang of drug dealers and other criminal types. In that building, Yalini gets a job as the cook/housekeeper of the ailing Mr. Habib. Soon her boss is joined by his nephew Brahim (Vincent Rottiers) after his jail sentence is reduced to house arrest. Meanwhile Illayaal has a difficult time adjusting to her new school, even getting into fights. Then one day she and her “mother” are nearly killed during an drive-by attack on Brahim and his crew. Dheepan is pushed to the brink. Will he resort to his old combat ways in order to protect these two strangers who now are truly his family?

A mostly unknown cast ably carries the powerful story. As the title character, Antonyhasan gives him a worn-out, world-weary way of moving and reacting.  He’s seen far too much, but instead of reverting to brutality, Dheepan has a desire to be a better man and really become a husband and father. Slowly his surroundings chip away, and Antonyhasan simmers with a pent-up rage (the tenants disrespect him without a thought) that must somehow be released. Srinivasan’s Yalini is also in conflict. At first she feels imprisoned, with Dheepan her sullen warden. She even makes serious plans to escape, to flee to London. Then she responds to his small acts of kindness and the walls she has built over the course of her rough life begin to erode. As their pre-teen “daughter” Illayaal, Vinasithamby is overwhelmed with responsibility, first to maintain the family “lie”, then to act as a guide for her “parents”, since she has picked up the new language must faster than them. She also shows us the loneliness that eats away at her, finally culminating in a schoolyard brawl. The most compelling supporting player may be screen vet Rottiers as the charismatic, but dangerous Brahim. Yalini nearly initiates a friendship with him, until Brahim threatens Dheepan, as though he were tossing off a bit of casual advise, all without passion, pure dead-eyed menace.
This artists are ably guided by director Jacques Audiard, who also worked on the screenplay with Noe Debre and Thomas Bidegain. All of them contribute to the film’s authenticity. There’s a raw, gritty quality to every moment, Audiard never goes for “movie artifice”. A romantic encounter is without any glossy sentimentality. During the most heated exchange the camera stays close, with an uncomfortable intimacy. The setting is full of grim and grit, almost swallowing the occupants in dirt and dust. When violence does finally strike, there’s a disorienting immediacy. Where are the shooters? Is any space safe? Building D looms as a fearsome monolith, complete with gargoyles (actually goons that patrol the rooftops, hurling insults and concrete blocks). None of the criminals seem to ever sleep (perhaps due to their “product”). DHEEPAN is an engrossing, powerful tale of courage and family, a story certainly worthy of its Palme d’Or win recently at Cannes.
4 Out of 5
DHEEPAN opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas