“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
— Plato
Movie info
“Dheepan”
Crime, drama
Dheepan is a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.
Length: 115 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity
Director: Jacques Audiard
Writers: Jacques Audiard (dialogue), Jacques Audiard (screenplay)
Stars: Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Claudine Vinasithamby
There always seems to be something magical about three strangers connecting in the darkness of war and trying to find their way to the light. In movie history, it’s always been a standard theme, but usually with a touch of romance.
There is no romance, at least not the kind we’re accustomed to in Jacques Audiard’s “Dheepan.”
Our three strangers are thrown together in the belly of Sri Lanka’s civil war beast.
Sivadhasan (Jesuthasan Antonythasan), a former Tamil Tiger warrior who, winding up on the losing side, tosses his uniform on a blazing pyre that has been set to consume a stack of corpses.
He clearly is finished with the brutal madness that has consumed his nation, and sets out to escape with hundreds of others, to France.
In order to do so, he connects with a woman. Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan). and a child named Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby), who are also seeking to flee.
Together, under supervision of friendly officials, they assume the identity of a dead family, take their passports, and set out.
They eventually wind up in a gang-controlled suburb in Northern France, having exchanged one war zone for another.
Yalini is a survivor; it was she who picked up the orphaned girl and used her to gain sustenance. In her early 20s, she is a street-smart girl and plays the role of wife and mother only until she can get to London, where she has a cousin.
We learn here, if we haven’t already, that this is the history of the world, from earliest times, from all corners of the world: Someone always has a “cousin” somewhere, where the grass is greener.
Patching together menial jobs in a once florid garden resort now in shambles, and taken over by warring drug gangs, they put the child in school, where it’s clear that she is the brightest and most hopeful of the three, a smart insert of hope for the future.
It is here in this “garden” that things go wrong — very wrong. There are constant shootouts, drive-by shootings and explosions, making it difficult to begin again in any meaningful way. Here, the brutality and violence of Sri Lanka re-emerges, and of course, there will be blood, victims and survivors.
Audiard’s script and the talents of these three pilgrims hold the film solidly together through all the Sri Lanka horror and terror of the “New” France, where immigrants do emotional daily combat with the second French “lost generation.”
Audiard’s actors, each of whom seem to have been plucked from the war zones and streets of Sri Lanka, are amazing.
To watch Antonythasan as “Dheepan” struggle to even take a deep breath of freedom and shed the chrysalis of patriot killer is almost exhausting.
Srinivasan as Yalini the “bride” is a creation stunning to watch.
What gifts all the actors possess.
Eponine Momenceau’s camera walks, runs, plummets and tumbles through the smoke, blood and even the scant touches of tenderness, like a combat photographer’s bloodied instrument.
How Juliette Welfing edited all these faces and moments into the cohesive tapestry that won the coveted Palme d’or at Canne is no small ahievement. “Dheepan” stuns, shatters and compels.
J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.
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