The renowned British playwright Tom Stoppard had once remarked: ‘A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar—you pretend it's not there.’ In Le Fils a.k.a. The Son (2002), a film by the Belgian director-writer duo, brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, the camera is more like the gaze of a smitten lover—unflinching and unwavering to the point of being almost unbearable.
With their grounding in documentary filmmaking, in the hands of the brothers, the camera seems to have taken a life of its own—prodding, prying, and perceiving the dreary, day-to-day dealings of Olivier (a role that fetched Olivier Gourmet, the perennial favourite of the Dardenne siblings, the Best Actor award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival), a carpentry instructor at a vocational rehabilitation establishment in Liège, Belgium.
However, even though the Dardennes have filmed Le Fils using a handheld camera, their approach is not that of the ‘queasy-cam’; nor is it the point-of-view style, which is the current fad among filmmakers. Instead, the shots are mostly over-the-shoulder of Olivier, so that the camera sees what Olivier does, rather than acting as an expository element. At the beginning of the film, during the few occasions that we get to see his face, we find the bespectacled Olivier to be an expressionless and sullen individual. Meticulous in his craft, as all good carpenters should be, he gruffly reprimands his four students—Raoul, Steve, Omar, and Philippo—whenever they fail to stick to the basic tenets of carpentry. The hammering of nails, whirring of power tools, and other ambient sounds of a carpentry workshop fill up our ears from the moment the film opens. To accentuate Olivier’s dull existence, the Dardennes have completely done away with a background score. It is as if to signify that like the unseen camera that hovers around his back or the wooden beams that he is sometimes seen balancing on his shoulder, Olivier is carrying a burden—a burden that has the potential to completely mess up the life of this otherwise careful, meticulous man.
While Olivier checks the measurements taken by his students, instructs them to plug gaps between pieces of wood, and shows them how to use the various tools of the trade, one gets the feeling that this ever-watchful individual is equally fastidious about not letting his guard down. One cannot but help think that the attention to detail is but a façade, cultivated to keep in place a secret simmering deep inside.
Always in motion, keeping his hands busy forever, Olivier’s continuous movement is quite akin to that of an animal in captivity. His only way of letting out steam is to do pushups within the confines of the four walls of his dingy apartment. But then again, that act might not be to alleviate the pain he feels deep within, but to soothe the muscles of his lower back.
A man who does not reveal an iota of emotion when his estranged wife arrives at his doorstep to tell him that she is getting remarried and is also carrying a child in her womb, suddenly springs to action when he is handed the file of a young boy, Francis (Morgan Marinne) who wants to join his carpentry section. Initially reluctant and dismissive, soon Olivier starts following Francis, both inside the vocational facility, and out of it. He steals his keys, breaks into his room, and even lies down on his bed. Little by little, we learn about the blow fate has dealt to Olivier. Slowly, but surely, we also fathom the reason behind the man’s growing fascination about who the boy is and what he does.
It is precisely then that every movement of this cautious carpenter takes on a completely different dimension. Contrary to the pre-determined method that determines how two pieces of wood fall in place, we, the viewer—now privy to Olivier’s secret—are left to wonder what the outcome of each of his moves will be. The total lack of any expository dialogue and the absence of any back story make the task all the more difficult for us.
Francis, though, is completely oblivious of how his life is connected to that of Olivier. This uneven equation is made even more apparent by the symmetry that is such an inherent aspect of the profession of carpentry. Francis is, however, in awe of Olivier’s acumen of using his eyes as a measuring tape. Even though Olivier is barely civil towards the sixteen-year-old—he refuses to pay for his food, nor does he shake his hand—an unspoken understanding starts growing between these two equally quiet individuals, step by step, in sync with the carpenter’s character.
Then, one day, Olivier extends an invitation to Francis to accompany him during the weekend on a long drive to a timber yard. The objective is to understand various types of wood, he says. But we, the viewer, because of what we know and Francis does not, fear for him. And we pray that for once this man, who has an innate ability to make the correct decision when it comes to a dead piece of wood, displays the same judgment in the case of life, as well.
A film that says as much with an actor’s body as one blow of a carpenter talks of his talent, Le Fils, while staying true to the ‘Belgian lower-class life’ template that the Dardenne brothers are famous for, has at its core a simple truth with universal appeal. Inevitably, most of us will not miss the obvious comparison between Olivier and the most revered carpenter of all, but the essence of this truly minimalist film lies in the carpenter’s rule: ‘Measure twice; cut once.'
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