The Kid with a Bike
LE GAMIN AU VÉLO
Belgium, 2011, 87'
Cyrill is an unwanted child. He cannot accept the father’s rejection and his confinement in a foster home, constantly on the move in search of a home and a social and emotional space. He won’t even surrender to the generous but stern welcome of a new mother (hairdresser Samantha, a proletarian Cécile de France), immobile in his idea and sincere filial love for an absent parent. As in all fairy tales, Cyrill has to go though a dark forest, meet Evil, be overcome by it, and then understand the meaning of forgiveness. Thus, he earns a resurrection in another space, in which the primordial law of survival is replaced by the freedom of an act of love.
Another story told from different points of view, dominated by two-character shots in which the Dardennes’ gaze moves about with a caressing motion, constructing complex long takes that never lapse into virtuosity – they only punctuate an exemplary story. The omniscient narrator of this story describes a morality play rooted more in Rossellini’s educational cinema than in Antoine Doinel’s melancholy runs or The Wild Child’s stubbornness. A political fairy tale bathed in summer sunshine, at once modern and ancestral, rigorous and passionate.
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: 06 Nov 2022
- Time: 15:00
Location
- Cinema Stensen - Viale Don Giovanni Minzoni, 25c, 50129 Florence
Organizer
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Jean-Pierre e Luc Dardenne
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are Belgian directors, screenwriters and producers. After studying drama, Jean-Pierre, and philosophy, Luc, the Dardenne brothers shot their first militant works, filming social struggles in Belgian working-class neighbourhoods. In the late 1970s, they founded film production companies and made their first documentary films, including Lorsque le bateau de Léon M. descendit la Meuse pour la première fois (1979), Pour que la guerre s'achève, les murs devaient s'écrouter (1980), R... ne répond plus (1981), Leçons d'une université volante (1982) and Regard Jonathan/Jean Louvet, 231 (1983). In 1996 their third fiction film, La Promesse, was presented at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, but it was not until 1999 that they gained international recognition with their first Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with the film Rosetta. In 2005 they won their second Palme d'Or with L'Enfant - A Love Story and in 2008 The Silence of Lorna, dedicated to the theme of illegal immigration and white marriage, brought them the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Among their most recent works, The Kid with a Bike won the Special Jury Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and Tori and Lokita, Special Prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2022.
