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LORNA'S SILENCE Send This Review to a Friend
Desperate efforts at immigration and the problems that can result are dealt with in “Lorna’s Silence " (Le Silence de Lorna”), a new film shown at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and directed and written by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, the renowned brothers whose films have won praise throughout the film world. It is now going into commercial release.
“Lorna’s Silence” stars Arta Dobroshi in the title role as a woman from Albania who has come to Belgium and runs into dangerous problems as she tries to extricate herself from complications. It is filmed in the low key Dardenne style, but gains intensity as intrigue and danger mount as result of Russian mafia involvement.
Lorna, touchingly portrayed by Dobroshi, is trapped in a pressure cooker situation. She is supposed to help murder the man with whom she has become involved in a fake marriage in order for her to get legal status. He is a drug addict, and as he tries to pull his life together, Lorna grows closer to him.
But the screenplay involves a plot in which she is now supposed to marry a Russian criminal who needs his legal status, and the elimination of Claudy ((Jérémie Renier), Lorna’s sham husband who stands in the way. What is she to do? Ethical and personal questions haunt her. And she must fear for her own life as she is ensnared the machinations entrapping her.
With their traditional low-key approach, the directors manage to create a deeply human and suspenseful film set against the background of how difficult it is for migrants to build new lives against the odds facing them and the potential corruption that abounds.
This particular story takes place in Belgium, but one can multiply it for other geographical locations as well.
A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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