Anonymous city, handheld camera, actors who scarcely seem to be acting: we may think we know where we are, more or less. This is surely the New Wave by way of Neo-Realism, early Truffaut chasing late Rossellini. Didn't we get over this? How could a film in this vein, namely L'Enfant, written and directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, win the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year? To say nothing of the same prize won by their film Rosetta, a venture in just the same vein, in 1999. 'A gritty urban tale of a young couple living on the breadline in France', the BBC says of L'Enfant. Belgium, as it happens, and more like the criminal fringe than the breadline. But gritty and urban are going to be part of almost anyone's first impressions. Grim, too. Are we so nostalgic for the hard realities we imagine the movies have lost?

LRB 6 April 2006 | PDF Download