Jesuthasan Antonythasen
With the Prof away, I used some of my birthday " Theatre Clwyd" voucher from my sister, to go and see the much lauded French movie Dheepan
It was worth the visit.
Dheepan,(Jesuthasan Antonythasan) is a Tamil warrior in Sri Lanka, hunted and persecuted in the country's civil war. He escapes to France with two strangers, Yalini ( Kalieaswari Srinivasen) and Illianya (Claudine Vinasithamby) ( the trio masquerading as a dead father, mother and child family unit) and the " family" end up as caretakers in a crime ridden housing estate ruled by drug gangs.
Not only do the trio need to adapt in this hostile new world ( which is obviously not as hostile as the history the three left behind ) but they have to develop tentative relationships with each other, relationships which are over shadowed by post traumatic Stress and ghosts of families lost.
Antonythasan, is not a professional actor , but he is highly impressive as the quiet and troubled warrior at odds with the undisciplined and chaotic French underworld but it is the initially unsympathetic and equally damaged Srinivasen who steals the limelight, for it is through her eyes that we glimpse a woman who has done anything to survive a homeland war but who still tentatively dares to hope for a better life.
Dheepan is an impressively confident film and I dare anyone who has ever sneered at the asylum seekers lot , to watch it unmoved
9/10
Kalieaswari Srinivasan
Love your critiques. Will have to check this one out.
ReplyDeleteOh, crikey! This is the second Indian film you recommend which had been on my list to see but circs prevented it. (Remember 'The Music Box' of last year?) 'Dheepan' came to Brighton a few weeks back but I couldn't make it. Now, I see, that it's coming here too but just for the one showing, and that at 8.30 p.m., a time I'm simply never out. Seems like I should seriously consider making an exception. Decisions, decisions!
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