Jacques Audiard’s latest totally stunning thriller is steeped in violence which seems to be his raison d’être these days. This one starts off briefly in Sri Lanka where Deephan (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) a Tamil freedom fighter is trying to flee the country after the latest battle in the civil war has ended in a massacre. He’s been given the passport of a dead soldier and Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) a woman who he has just met is dashing around to find a nine year old orphan child so they can pass themselves as the dead man’s family.
It works and they are allowed to sail on the boat to France packed full of refugees. When they land to claim political asylum and are interrogated by the Authorities, their Sri Lankan interpreter is also Tamil and so he invents a background story for Dheepan and his new ‘family’ so that they are allowed to stay. Social Services find him a job as a caretaker in a very shabby multi-block of public housing apartments in a very rough city suburbs, and the three of them set out for what they think will be their safe new life.
The first upset is that the ‘daughter’ Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby) is made to join a special needs class with the other immigrant children who cannot speak French, which really upsets her. Yalini is bitter at being forced to act as a wife and mother to these strangers and keeps complaining that she would have prefered to have been sent to the UK where she at least has a sister. Dheepan persuades her to stay and finds her job cooking and caring for an infirm elderly man which does at least put some money in her pocket.
Her charge is the uncle of Brahim (Vincent Rottiers) one of the gang leaders on the estate and when he is released from his latest prison sentence and moves back home, there is uneasy alliance between Yalini and Brahim even though she is very wary of him. It is also becoming increasingly obvious that the rivalry between the different gangs of thugs who control most aspects of life in the buildings has escalated to such a state that it is inevitable that there will be unavoidable violence soon.
Dheepan is doing his utmost to fit in, although he finds aspects of his new life baffling, such as the French attitude to humor which he simply cannot grasp. He is a silent solitary man who seems to bear all the memories of his homeland with great sadness, but there are some very tender moments when he does try to make the family that has been thrust on him, a reality. When he is contacted by a Tamil Tiger contact who wants to enlist his help in funding the war, that is the point that Dheepan’s distress turns to anger and violence breaks out.
It is not the worse however as when gang warfare eventually erupts and Yanil and Illayaal are almost caught in the cross fire, that they finally realize that they have simply swapped one war zone for another. This however is a really alien one along way from home, but when Dheepan reacts by going into full guerilla mode it seems like they have come full circle.
In casting his lead actor Audiard repeated the same approach he used with ‘A Prophet’ and opted for an unknown who so perfectly personified the spirit of a man silently shouldering the weight of his world, whilst trying to control his own simmering anger. Jeseuthaasan who is a writer and activist and who was also once a child Tamil Tiger, was pitch perfect in his breakout performance as Dheephan. It was maybe helped by the fact that he claims the story is in fact 50% autobiographical. Also like the character he plays, he will never be allowed to return to his own country without forfeiting his life.
Dheepan won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and following both A Prophet and Rust & Bone, it confirms Audiard as one of the most important voices in French cinema today.
