Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are back at the Cannes Film Festival, where they won the Palme d'Or for Rosetta in 1999 and L'Enfant in 2005, with their new feature Tori et Lokita, presented in official competition. It follows the wanderings in Belgium of Tori(Pablo Schils) and Lokita(Joely Mbundu), two Beninese refugee minors. To be seen in cinemas on October 5, 2022.
Young Tori, as tall as three apples, and the slightly older teenager are left to their own devices, and find themselves at the very bottom of the social ladder as a result of their illegal entry into Belgium. But as is often the case with the Dardenne brothers, some rungs of the ladder are sawed off, others covered with a good coat of oil, others missing altogether, and this blended sibling group seems destined to stay where it is. Violence of words and gestures.
From the first scene, in which Lokita is forced to answer a barrage of questions from a social worker to determine whether Tori, who has just obtained his papers, is indeed his sworn brother, to the film's final climactic scene, which some may find a tad wheezy, the Dardennes lay out the frameworks of an exploitative, Manichean society in which no human being is willing to reach out to the two young men, the Dardennes lay down the shackles of an exploitative, Manichean society in which no human being is willing to lend a helping hand to the two young men - the cook, who is also a drug dealer and rapist, delivers drugs to them, the Beninese smuggler extorts money from them, preventing them from sending their few savings to the insistent family back home.
A feeling ofunrealism and a difficulty in believing in the film sets in, so much so that this sequence of situations, each more dramatic than the last, seems exaggerated and doomed to failure. Fortunately, the profound nature of thefriendship between Tori and Lokita in this solitary exile lends heart to this social, humanist and militant film, as in all the works of the Belgian brothers. A false sibling, a true love, carried by the revelation Pablo Schils, a resourceful little genius who exudes courage and benevolence for his sister at heart, and who, in his monotone voice, pragmatically enunciates truths, advice, kind words and comfort.
October 2024 cinema releases: Films and times near you
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Dates and Opening Time
Starts October 5, 2022
October 2024 cinema releases: Films and times near you
