Cannes 2022, remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 8 (MAY 24): THE DARDENNE BROTHERS IN FINE FORM



TORI AND LOKITA (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Cannes. In Competition. Story of a young boy and an adolescent girl who have emigrated from Africa to Belgium, and must face up to the challenges of their exile. Variety says the Dardennes are "back on form" and the film is a tale of "wily immigrant kids scrambling for survival" that is "a parable of the age of economic injustice." Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily says this is "at the very least" "their finest since 2011's THE KID WITH THE BIKE and arguably one of their very best." In a story that is evidently typically well-researched for authenticity, the two youths are forced into desperate measures, including pretending to be siblings and drug dealing, to survive as they struggle to establish residency in the Dardennes' usual locales in Solvaing and around Liège. Bradshaw, who awards only a neutral 3/5 stars, thinks this a continued falling off of the brothers' work, noting some crude narrative devices, and "there are sometimes issues with basic plot naivety and plausibility," marring the artistry and detracting from the good research. (It will wind up midway on the Jury Grid, at 2.5 along with TRIANGLE OF SADNESS AND R.M.N.)