I was compelled to watch Dheepan (2015) after hearing M.I.A. discuss it in the Criterion Closet. Opening with its title character (played by Antonythasan Jesuthasan in an excellent performance) burning his uniform as a Tamil Tiger in a bonfire where the bodies of his fallen comrades have been collected. He needs a make-shift family to secure political aslyum from Sri Lanka. His “wife” Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) finds an orphaned child Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby) and together they are granted asylum to France much to Yalini’s disappointment who has relatives in England. Dheepan eventually takes a job as a caretaker for a housing project called Le Pre, which is overrun by drug dealers and criminal gangs. The film observes the ways in which these three strangers start to bond as a family unit as well as trying to settle into a fraught, new environment with gang related tension. Directed by Jacques Audiard (Rust And Bone, A Prophet) and the winner of the 2015 of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, I found this for the most part to be an engaging and moving story, particularly showing both the growing care and the lingering trauma between the three immigrants. However, a few other reviewers have noted the shift in tone with the climax, which feels like something from Taxi Driver or a Death Wish action movie (the director’s intitial intention was to create a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs). I don’t know if it was successful in building the tension to result in such an explosive (though well directed and executed) sequence. It almost seems like two different types of movie in one, and not as cohesively orchestrated as I hoped. In the end, I did like Dheepan particularly the performances of the three main characters. Streaming on SBS OnDemand.
VHS Tracking 