The Child

The Dardenne brothers' film is set in Seraing in Belgium. Bruno, played by Jérémie Renier, is twenty, lives off petty theft, and his girlfriend Sonia has just given birth. Bruno sells the baby, without really thinking about what he is doing. The question at the centre is not moral but cognitive: Bruno is not a bad man, only someone who cannot grasp what a thing means. Not until he meets Sonia's reaction does he register that what he sold was a child. The Dardennes' camera is where it always is, at shoulder height and behind the character, with no explanation, no score and no comment. The final scene is among the best endings in their work: two people sitting at a table, and the collapse beginning without a word. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2005, the brothers' second after Rosetta, placing them among the few directors to have taken it twice. Who it is for: viewers who value social realism and Dardenne cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting scored emotion or a clear moral verdict.