Dheepan movie review & film summary (2016)

Dheepan gets the dauntingly enormous job as "caretaker" of a big housing project in Le Pré, overrun with drug dealers running their operation out of one of the buildings in broad daylight. He is told to ignore the "thugs," work around them, pass on by. Illayaal is enrolled in school. Illayaal does amazingly well, all things considered (and young Vinasithamby is terrific in a challenging role). Dheepan and Yalini share space warily, and their initial conversations are made up of Information Only topics: cooking, jobs, money. Yalini yearns to escape to a cousin who lives in England. She keeps one eye on the door, feeling no responsibility for Illayaal or anything else. She gets a job cleaning the apartment of an invalid man in the drug-dealer building, where the pitch-black stairway is like a descent into Dante's Inferno, glimpses of "thugs" passing by, frothing pitbulls struggling against the leash. Her job for the old man is quiet enough at first, and she finds herself drawn to Brahmin (Vincent Rottiers, in a frightening and charming performance), a young drug lord with an electronic tag on his ankle and chilly blue eyes. There is one extraordinary scene where he and Yalini have a complete conversation, in two different languages, not understanding one word the other says, but somehow an energy-charge passes between them. The situation shivers with the draw of danger, and the scene is pure Audiard territory.

Jesuthasan Antonythasan, a marvelous actor, is in many respects acting out his own life story. He joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist group warring for Tamil rights against the Sri Lanka government. Antonythasan left the group at 19, fleeing their clutches, before finally ending up in France (via Hong Kong, Malaysia, Bangkok). Dheepan is first seen covering a pile of burning bodies with palm leaves, but it is some time before it is revealed he fought with the Tamil Tigers. Later in the film, the talons of the group reach out for him in France. Perhaps there is guilt at what he had done while a part of the group, the innocents he may have killed. Perhaps there is grief at what he lost, although the details are fuzzy. While it would have been helpful to know whatever is in Dheepan's rear view mirror back in Sri Lanka, Antonythasan's face is beautifully eloquent and expressive: his whole life is there. Dheepan is a character actor's role but Antonythasan is a natural leading man.

There are great scenes throughout between Antonythasan and Srinivasan: the characters submit to their pretense uneasily, take care of their new charge, argue, soften towards one another. Their scenes have a fresh intensity, with sudden soft moments, like Yalini telling Dheepan that he needs to develop a sense of humor. It's as though they are handcuffed to each other and have to try, at least, to get along. Did Dheepan have a family of his own? He seems used to close proximity, whereas Yalini is uncomfortable. He and Yalini fight over her desire to pick up stakes; he feels responsible for the child. Dheepan keeps his head down as the drug wars heat up in the vast unkempt space between the housing project buildings. The innocent residents cower in their dark apartments. 

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