satxfan This was a wonderful film that depicts a experiences of a refugee 'family' as they try to establish a life in France. Oddly enough, the ending of this film has been highly criticized. IMO, the people who have criticized the ending perhaps have not carefully thought through the events leading up to that 'ending.' Dheepan's wife is held hostage and Dheepan goes to the rescue. He attacks a couple of gang members with a machete and then, using a confiscated gun, kills several more gang members on his way up to the top floor of the apartment building where his wife is being held. The building is still surrounded and controlled by violent gang members. Without much doubt, the police are on their way there, too. It seems that the only real 'ending' for Dheepan is either to be killed by gang members - after all, he's on the top floor with no logical escape route - OR - to be arrested by the police for murder. It's not even imaginable that he escaped that situation unscathed. It's even more unimaginable that he could have gotten out of there and then emigrated to England.The 'ending' then is not the real ending to Dheepan's story. His story obviously did not end well. The 'ending' tagged into the film is a dream - a dream of what might have been. The 'ending' is shot in warm, hazy tones, no one has aged or changed - It's a wish, a dream, a last fleeting thought.

Andres-Camara If this film were from Eastwood or Bronson it would be said that it is shot but being French and Jacques Audiard, nothing happens. The film does not seem to me to be bad in essence, it is very credible, that is until the last fifteen minutes that the dialogue ends.It's a hard movie, if it is, it's credible. For me it's a bit repetitive. There comes a time when you do not know where you are going. I began to think about where I could go and to my surprise he headed down a surprising path. I do not want to say anything in order not to spoil the end, but it is precisely what makes me suspend it. I do not believe that end.Photography and camera are very normal. The mount also until you give by slow motion does not say anything and put the camera at the height of the feet, I imagine to disguise the effects.The actors are very good too, everyone. I do not know if they are all professionals or not but they are very good.In order that the script for my taste follows a way that surprised me since I thought I was seeing something social and I have seen some revenge.Spoiler: Now I do not know if someone is wondering if a person can pick up and steal a niece or little girl and that is fine and the worst thing is that it is not to save her, but to save herself. Above is thought to get rid of it.The end to the Charles Bronson, was shot and then the sequence of happiness. Great, how many people killed him? It does not matter? Or does it only matter if Eastwood does?

Tom Dooley This is about three people of Tamil origin thrown together by the harsh vagaries of war, who then escape from Sri Lanka to France. There Dheepan gets a job as a caretaker to some blocks of flats that seem to be inhabited by a lot of low level criminals.The film follows the travails and hardships that they all face and how they stand up to them and bring them all closer together. ***Plot Spoiler Ahead *** Now this is from French film director Jacques Audiard whose last film 'Rust and Bone' I really liked but it was over sensational where the Killer Whales were concerned (they have never bitten a trainers legs off ever in captivity) and once again he takes liberties here but what did it for me was the fairy tale ending that just acts as an advert to refugees to flock to England every time they want to make it big in our multi cultural Utopia. He should really go to Hollywood if he wants to make this type of film.

chaos-rampant How to begin to say anything? It's no small matter, provided you have decided to not waste the time that has been given you, which is a great gift, being there. And how to speak words that get to the crux without reducing? This is all there is to it, though we cloud and clutter it with all sorts of obligatory hierarchies and narratives, in both life and film. There are several things I move past here. The camera is a bit more garish than I'm drawn to, the strands of plot also. I am not instantly bowled over by any predilections of 'showing life' or confronting 'issues', life is a vast surge to set before you any aim of 'capturing'. The language is Bresson's essentially, punctured by loud interludes, neon bunny ears and disheveled shawls that belie sex that was just had. But it gets to the crux in two important ways. The filmmaker could have plainly chosen to show us - like Spielberg would - a loving ordinary family forced to flee horrors. He makes it a point instead to show us a woman picking up an orphan girl among many in a camp and being paired with a stranger to create the needed family, given fake passports to be on their way to Europe. It's not because he thinks refugees are 'phony' that he does this, it seems rather out of desire to portray a reality that can be this complex and demands our response. We are better off facing a story like Dheepan's rather than lulling ourselves to sleep with platitudes that airbrush humanity for salon discussions.Once in France, it becomes strangely watchable as we navigate the difficulties of having to make sense but any other film on the subject could trot out much the same 'fish out of water' scenario. We do see how, one warzone left behind, another greets them on their doorstep. We do see how the war surges up again in the man as response, life having that quality of conjuring itself up again. Dheepan's Buddhist neighbors would know this as karma.But the other thing I like is that we have these people, engaged as characters in a fiction of husband and wife, pushing against limits to know truth. He gives us undecided people with urges, which is an accomplishment. Indeed the larger consciousness that moves the story is after Cassavetes, made more apparent with the shift ahead to London that finally plucks waking truth from the murk of roles and anxieties. Truth after all is something that you go out there and make happen , by going hard for her in this case.