La Promesse

Starring:JÃ©rÃ©mie Renier, Olivier Gourmet, Assita Ouedraogo, Florian Delain, FrÃ©dÃ©ric Bodson, Alain Holtgen, Hachemi Haddad, Jean-Michel Balthazar, Rasmane Ouedraogo, Sophie Leboutte
Director: Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Studio: New Yorker Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

La Promesse draws on the considerable documentary acumen of its directors, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Rosetta), to prove a revelation in narrative filmmaking. Shot on the outskirts of an industrial city in Belgium, the film follows Igor (Jérémie Rénier), the 15-year-old son of a single parent named Roger (Olivier Gourmet) who rents squalid apartments to recently arrived immigrants, many of them illegal. As Igor struggles to hold down odd jobs while assisting his father in crooked dealings, the Dardenne brothers plunge the audience into the thick of difficult issues--immigration, cultural and racial bias, bureaucratic injustices--without overtly politicizing or diminishing any of their characters. When Igor promises to help a young African woman, he finds he must choose between loyalty to his father and his own conscience. The beauty is in how the Dardenne brothers seem to share in the viewer's curiosity about the film's outcome, having captured a world so charged yet unadorned you feel the surprise of each new scene alongside the directors. An extraordinary film that bears repeated viewings. --Fionn Meade

Customer Reviews:

It is surprising how many different kinds of people respond to this film..........2007-01-20

We played La Promesse for our film society on a dark and snowy night. The response was sensational. Thinking people really seem to like this film; perhaps the straight-forward, no comments narrative allows us viewers to form our own opinions. This is a tough subject, told in a hard style, but it has the redemptive punch of the most hopeful Bressons (think Pickpocket or Women of the Boulogne Woods). The performance by Jeremie Renier is up there with anything Roddy McDowell did as a young actor; Olivier Gourmet is terrific in the ambiguity he brings to his role as the boy's father. In a very quiet and non-preachy way, this film talks to the future of Europe, the question of whether morality matters in a free market world, and the ties that family arouses in most of us. This is a great movie that sounds like it will be a drag. If you like this, look at Rosetta; you have probably already seen L'Enfant. If you're not a foreign language film buff, give it a try if you like Paul Shraeder at his most hopeful (American Gigolo; Light Sleeper) or John Boorman at his most idealistic (Beyond Rangoon; Emerald Forest). This will not disappoint you.

The camera simply watches . . ........2006-10-13

Documentary filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne bring a particularly convincing sense of real life captured on film with this their first fiction film. The hand-held camera and location settings and the abrupt edits that propel the story forward, together with a very unromanticized subject, make this fictional world completely believable as a slice of life lived by men and women on the fringes of law-abiding society. With young Igor (Jérémie Rénier), a teenager older than his years, at the center of the story, we learn of illegal aliens and those who profit by providing them with shelter and work in the gray urban landscape of a northern European city.

Rénier's performance is remarkable, as is that of his unpleasant father played by Olivier Gourmet. The camera simply watches them without comment, functioning in an amoral universe, until a fatal accident brings about a sudden change of heart for the young Igor and a commitment, against all odds, to make right something that has gone horribly wrong. The movie avoids sentimentality and takes you relentlessly to an end that leaves us, the characters walking away, their dilemma unresolved. An excellent film for anyone who likes thoughtful renderings of real life concerns. See also the Dardenne's more recent film, "L'Enfant," also starring Renier.

Dark coming-of-age story.......2005-01-31

Teenager Igor (Jeremie Renier) and his glum father Roger (Olivier Gourmet) run a business smuggling illegal aliens into Belgium. Once there, the aliens are at Roger's mercy, and he exploits this by stashing them in dilapidated buildings, charging phenomenal rent, and then squeezing them for extra money by charging for heating and false papers. This is all paid for by their labour--and most of the illegals also work for Roger on building sites. Roger uses Igor, who also works as an apprentice at a mechanic's shop, as a henchman. Roger demands and expects complete loyalty from his 15-year-old son. Igor watches as his father busts in doors demanding rent, shakes the aliens down for money, and even participates in a scenario in which Roger deliberately feeds some aliens to a police sting.

The film makes it clear that Igor is corrupted. He assists his father and is rewarded by goodies. Igor seems to leave any troubling moral issues behind as he races on his much-loved go-cart with other boys his own age. But when a dying alien exacts a promise from Igor that the boy will care for his wife, Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and child, Igor suddenly faces a moral dilemma.

"La Promesse" is a riveting and well-acted film. Igor, is at first, unaware that he crosses a moral divide when he begins assisting Assita. His help begins in little, barely noticeable ways. Igor simply wants to keep his promise to the dying man--he doesn't have any grand scheme in his head. The independent, suspicious Assista isn't very grateful, and Roger soon sniffs his son's growing humanity, and he reacts viciously. Events make the promise increasingly more difficult to keep, and inevitably, Igor has to make a moral choice. Igor has the look of a tough street urchin--thoroughly corrupted--or so it would appear--by a father who provides cigarettes and even prostitutes to his teenage son. Roger looks like a fairly harmless plump, not very bright, middle-aged man, but there's a raw brutality there, and his seeming lack of intelligence is the result of years of blunted emotion. "La Promesse" can be classified as a coming-of-age film, but Igor comes of age in a dark, bleak adult world. An excellent thought-provoking film--in French with English subtitles--displacedhuman

Flat-out my favorite film of the 90s.......2000-12-02

If you haven't seen this one, well... Its emotional impact on me was devastating. I saw it when it opened, and a friend and I, who are normally quite talkative after a good movie, walked at least two city blocks afterwards before either of us said a word. I compare it in style to "The Dreamlife of Angels" (hand-held cameras, naturalistic acting, a plot that unfolds gradually and builds to a harrowing finale, and no musical score) and in theme to, of all things, "The Apartment" (main character is waist-deep in wrongdoing but has a crisis of conscience that forces him to re-evaluate himself and his actions). Please find a copy somehow, or go ahead and spend the money here -- I don't want Amazon to get angry with me.

Best of 1998.......2000-02-18

This is not a warm fuzzy picture by any means, but it is film for people who love people and appreciate the higher instincts of mankind that transcend nationality, race, gender, and age. Does one follow instinctual bonds to family, or honor and committment to a worthy promise.

Product Description

"Belgium released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: French (Dolby Digital 2.0), Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0), Dutch (Subtitles), English (Subtitles), Italian (Subtitles), WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SYNOPSIS: Rosetta: The first scene, like almost all others, is a fighting scene. A girl, about 18, is sacked from her factory work because her trial period is over. The girl, Rosetta, is quite upset and the cops will have to arrive to get her out. She has her reasons: she lives in a caravan, with her alcoholic mother. She goes looking for work as some go to the war. Treasons, murders are in her mind, if not in her acts. La Promesse: Igor and his father, Roger, are making a decent living renting apartments to illegal immigrants and sometimes working them illegally (among other scams). But when the building inspector pays a surprise visit and Amidou falls off a scaffold in his hurry to hide, things start to unravel, particularly when Igor makes a promise to the injured Amidou that ultimately exposes the different values of Igor and Roger, and of Amidou's wife, Assita. SPECIAL FEATURES: 2-DVD Set, Biographies, Cast/Crew Interview(s), Documentary, Filmographies, Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, "

Average customer rating:

La Promesse
Starring: Victoria Sanchez , Nathalie Cavezzali , Manuel Tadros , Serge Turbide , and Maxime Brodeur
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( L ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000065MRA

Average customer rating:

La Promesse - Wide Screen - Subtitles
Starring: Assita Ouedraogo , Rasmane Ouedraogo , Olivier Gourmet , and Jérémie Rénier
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne , and Luc Dardenne
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( L ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B00005YMYL
Release Date: 2002-03-12

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Lock Up

Sex and the City: Series 1 : DVD

Cheaper By the Dozen [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

DVD: Children of the Corn (Divimax Edition)

Secret World Of Santa Claus - The Star Child