Even in world cinema, the stories we see on screen are largely those depicting the lives and crises of the most well-off members of each respective society – showing situations that still can largely be referred to as “first world problems” without a sense of ironic bite. It is why a film like Dheepan is so urgently needed in the current, self-centred socio-political climate.
It firmly puts us in the shoes of characters whose stories are never told in cinema: a film about immigrant characters that bravely refuses to make a political point, when an attempted humanist character study to help us understand their oft-turbulent lives will suffice.
A work of empathy – just ignore the main character
Set after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers at the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War (which places the film’s period setting between 2009 and 2010, even as it appears to be the present), Sivadhasan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan), a defeated freedom fighter, plans to move to France. Needing a convincing cover story in order to ensure political asylum, he takes two strangers to pose as his wife and young daughter in order to live up to the life stories of a murdered family whose passports he has been given.
Under his new guise as Dheepan, struggling to keep up the cost of living flogging novelty items in the city centre, he takes up a job as a caretaker at a suburban living facility seemingly populated entirely by gangs. His “wife” Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) becomes a personal care assistant to a frail old man with links to one of the gangs, whilst their “daughter” Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby) feels alienated in a new school, placed in a special needs class due to her detachment from French society.
Until the disastrous third act, the conflict stems entirely from the twin needs to maintain a cultural identity with assimilating into Western society without anybody gaining suspicion as to the illegal nature they entered the country in. Other reviews have written extensively as to the empathetic nature of the film, which I largely agree with, with one notable exception – the titular character.
Whereas Dheepan strives to upturn stereotypes the news media presents about Eastern immigrants, the characterisation of the title character worsens as the film concludes. His situation is as equally hopeless as the two other members of his nuclear family, but he is the only one who falls increasingly into madness. The controversial news story about Syrian refugees causing mass sexual assault in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015 is unintentionally recalled here, as the regressive attitude of the character towards women culminates with an attempted sexual assault of his own.
Dheepan won the P’alme D’or seven months before this incident occurred, so any similarities are unintentional – but its less-than-timely release leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Even though this is something to do strictly with the character’s deteriorating mental state, its belated release date after that widely reported event will do nothing to calm any fears in bigoted viewers about the supposed “evils” all immigrants are likely to do when entering into a society with a structure different to their own.
How to turn social realism into a cliched action film
There is a purpose for Dheepan’s decent into madness, but it usually manifests itself in ways troubling to the otherwise empathetic characterisation. Instead, the strongest and most affecting character arc belongs to his “wife” Yalini. With women being denied a societal voice in many Eastern countries, it is important that cinema tells their stories. Roger Ebert always described cinema as an “empathy machine” that has the power to put us in the shoes of lives different from our considerably more privileged own, yet it so rarely lives up to this earnest potential.
Every second Yalini is on screen, that theory is proved correct; after all, there is something inherently interesting about a middle-Eastern woman moving to the feminist west, only for the belittling of her character by a man to maintain. The problem is that director Jacques Audiard wants us to keep our sympathies with all the central characters, which is hard to do considering the repulsive nature of Dheepan’s behaviour both within and out of desperate situations.
In the final third of the film, Audiard’s brooding character study suffers the same problem as his earlier film A Prophet; turning into a cliched genre piece that does a disservice to the gruelling realism that occurred before. Here, the film inexplicably turns into the brand of half-assed action that Luc Besson regularly produces, with the carnage directed somewhat half-heartedly by Audiard. He maintains an element of visual beauty in the background, but clearly a prolonged battle sequence isn’t the best suit for him as a director, or for the film, providing an unearned denouement that goes back on the earlier character progression.
For five minutes, the DIY-action style overwhelms the film, proving utterly perplexing as to why Audiard decided to turn the narrative into Hardcore Dheepan. As a social realist character study doesn’t conform to narrative conventions by default, the third act seems ushered in purely to give the film a sense of finality. All it does is suggest Audiard didn’t have the courage of his convictions in making an earnest character study – something his previous film Rust and Bone showed he could do effortlessly.
Dheepan is the director’s most acclaimed film to date, which makes sense considering the political climate it has been released into, but is entirely inexplicable divorced of the relevancy of this news context. It is a showcase for three brilliant central performances, albeit thrown into a narrative that all but threatens to render them less interesting by default.
Conclusion
Dheepan should be a work of social-realism that helps us understand their plight, but only in the small moments (when the language barrier is addressed, or inter-character relationships that show a warm sense of humour in the face of underclass misery) does it feel the sum of its humanist intentions.
Otherwise, this is a film that loses the courage of its convictions, demanding to apply elements from genre cinema in order to force an unwarranted sense of narrative purpose. Dheepan has so much potential, but Audiard proves more interesting in surface style than in truly getting under the skin.
Dheepan took home the P’alme D’or at Cannes last year – did it deserve it, or did it rob a far more deserving film?
Dheepan is out now in the UK and on May 16 in the US. All international release dates are here.
Does content like this matter to you?
Become a Member and support film journalism. Unlock access to all of Film Inquiry`s great articles. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about cinema - get access to our private members Network, give back to independent filmmakers, and more.