STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
Dheepan a powerful tale of refugee displacement, writes Chris Knight
Just as the Cannes Film Festival winds down in the South of France, Canadian audiences have their first chance to see last year’s Palme d’Or winner from French filmmaker Jacques Audiard.
The subject matter is equally timely; Dheepan tells the story of a trio of refugees struggling to make sense of and fit into their new home.
When first we meet the title character, a Tamil Tiger played by Antonythasan Jesuthasan, he is looking tired and a little lost as he helps his fellow Sri Lankan soldiers dispose of a number of bodies. Whether he also helped kill them is a question the film wisely leaves unanswered, though his mild manner suggests he is a conscript rather than a volunteer in the conflict.
Dheepan is next seen in a refugee camp, looking for a wife and daughter to match the ones on the passports he holds of a now-deceased family. He finds Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan), who then procures nine-year-old Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby), through a process that is part adoption, part abduction.
Audiard shows great sympathy for his characters, although he has no illusions about the refugee process. When Dheepan is being interviewed by a French border official, his translator, who knows him from the conflict back home, first instructs him on what lies to tell, then helpfully translates his replies back into French.
Soon the newly formed family is living in a squalid housing estate seemingly controlled by a gang of drug dealers. Dheepan is given a job as caretaker, and busies himself fixing a broken elevator while trying to ignore the violence around him.
Much of the film’s depth comes from the decision to focus on all the characters. Yalini struggles with the language, and takes to answering questions with a bob of her head that can be read as either a yes or a no. Illayaal is quicker to pick up French, but uses it to write sad poems about not fitting in at school.
The refugees are all played by first-time actors, and create an appealing naturalism in their performances. And the camerawork places us, if not quite in their shoes, then at least in their vicinity, bobbing and weaving in their wake.
Better still, the French drug dealers are presented as more than just stock characters. One could almost imagine there’s an entire film possible dealing with their leader’s story alone, one that just happens to cross paths with the one we’re watching.
If Dheepan has a flaw, it’s in the filmmaker’s decision to end on an explosive note, followed by a much calmer coda. Neither seems completely necessary, raising the question of whether the ends justify the means.
But in the case of this deeply moving tale, I’m going to say the answer is yes.