Looking back on a meager summer, the most momentous release of the season came and went with a whisper. At the widest point of its release, Lorna’s Silence played in a scant 16 theaters, a number that seems unjust and yet perfectly suited to the modesty of its makers. (In my daydreams, Lorna’s Silence outperforms Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to become the ninth highest grossing film of all time.) This is the fifth feature from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the fraternal filmmaking team responsible for some of the most potent imports of the last ten years. If there is an overarching theme in their work, it has to do with the discovery of the spirit, which has earned them a place alongside the sainted Robert Bresson.

The young lady of the title, a stony beauty played with magnificent poise by Arta Dobroshi, is involved in a sham marriage to a stranger in order to gain Belgian citizenship. Her “husband” (Dardenne regular Jeremie Renier) is a scrawny drug addict who sleeps in the living room of her apartment. His desperate cries in the night are like the pangs of her conscience, a constant reminder of her secret sin. She tries her best to be indifferent to his suffering, but his pathetic dependence on her stimulates her moral sense and sets into motion a series of events that ends in tragedy. Or is it redemption? One of the glories of this courageously subtle film is the ambiguity of its final scene.    

continue reading