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The Silence of Lorna (2008)

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

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From Time Out London

This latest from Belgium’s Dardenne brothers – Europe’s quiet soldiers of urgent, humane cinema – needs defending after receiving an inexplicably poor critical reaction from some quarters. Perhaps it’s the extreme nature of the story that alienates or the unknowable central character that obscures the deeply pertinent moral inquiry at its heart. But the truth is that the deeper you dig, the more you’ll find that ‘The Silence of Lorna’ is just as rewarding as the directors’ last film, ‘The Child’, which also told of a youngster driven to warped behaviour by poverty or the threat of it.

The film is a portrait of Lorna (Arta Dobroshi), a young Albanian immigrant in the Belgian town of Liège, whose dream to live independently in Western Europe and run a sandwich shop with her boyfriend has distorted her sense of morality. In rabid pursuit of her goals, Lorna has entered into an arranged marriage with a Belgian junky, Claudy (Jérémie Renier), and even agreed with her mob handlers that they will kill him, by faking a drugs overdose, when he’s no longer useful. For much of the film, Lorna is willing to go along with this sinister arrangement, until a sequence of events light, or reignite, the flame of empathy and humanity inside her.

The Dardennes’ portrait of Lorna is brilliantly nuanced; it’s there to be explored and queried and debated as the film offers subtle, changing lines of communication between us and Lorna. For most of the film we witness the cold language of currency exchange between Lorna and everyone she meets – a language we recognise as a poor substitute for decent human behaviour but which also reveals how lonely and desperate she is. It’s only later, when she seeks intimacy with a strange nurse and a doctor, that she fully reveals this. It’s then that we come to see Lorna’s hard exterior as no less a performance than the cuts and bruises she tries to fake to seek a divorce on false grounds of physical abuse.

Meanwhile, we witness various challenges to her tough-girl act, whether it’s Claudy’s desperation or, later, the possibility that Lorna’s life may be fundamentally changing in a way she never expected. It’s this last development that allows us finally to stop looking at – or looking down on – Lorna and empathise with her. Once she opens the doors to self-examination, we see her more clearly ourselves.

Dobroshi gives a terrific performance, as does Renier, making his third appearance in a film by the Dardennes, who once again show themselves to be masters of turning grim social realities into deep explorations of human behaviour. By the time ‘The Silence of Lorna’ reaches its quiet, unusual, reflective finale, the film feels almost spiritual in its investigation of a lost soul.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1997, November 29 – December 3, 2008

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User reviews of this film

paul said...

Posted on Aug 12 2010 07:06 Hemingway knew that the way to get ahead in France was to pay for everything. Belgian society operates on a similar baisis. Money gets you exactly what you want in his novel, A Farewell To Arms. So too, with this movie. Money has an amoral value. Lorna's 1000 Euros is invested in the future of a baby that does not exist. She reluctantly takes the money because it is a sign that she is in with her controllers. However, the fake pregnancy reveals a madness that even Lorna does not understand. Her belief in the baby in the deserted hut is the point where the film departs from her story. Is it her madness that does this? Lorna cannot hold onto anything in this world apart from her instinct and presence of mind and the scene in which she clings onto the doctor who has told her that she is not pregnant is symbolic of her need to find normality in a depraved world. None of her relationships are normal. She is outside of a normal society. She has to survive against the odds and hence all moral constraints are sacrificed for this motive. She kills her driver who takes her across the border. She is alone.

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Thomas McNeils said...

Posted on Sep 24 2009 23:58 Well, the Dardenne brothers are among the three or four greatest directors working today - so I'm not sure where Mr. Evans' complaint is coming from. Boring? These are some of the most harrowing and memorable films being made today.

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Graham Turner said...

Posted on Dec 22 2008 15:28 What's up ? can't understand a film where you have to think for yourself ? Stick with Arnie and Claude, little boy, and leave films like this for adults.

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Steve Evans. said...

Posted on Dec 07 2008 05:27 The rule with Time Out reviews is that the better the review, the worse the film is on the paint drying test. This reviewer describes the film as the "latest from Belgium’s Dardenne brothers – Europe’s quiet soldiers of urgent, humane cinema". Say no more.

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