| Lorna's Silence | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
|
| Directed by | Jean-Pierre Dardenne Luc Dardenne |
| Produced by | Jean-Pierre Dardenne Luc Dardenne Denis Freyd |
| Written by | Jean-Pierre Dardenne Luc Dardenne |
| Starring | Arta Dobroshi Jérémie Renier Fabrizio Rongione |
| Cinematography | Alain Marcoen |
| Editing by | Marie-Hélène Dozo |
| Release date(s) | 19 May 2008 (Cannes Film Festival) 28 August 2008 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | Belgium |
| Language | French |
Lorna's Silence (French: Le silence de Lorna) is a 2008 drama film by the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. It was the winner of the 2008 LUX Prize.[1]
Contents |
Lorna, a young Albanian woman who lives in Belgium, is in sham marriage with Claudy, a drug addict who accepted the money to be her husband. The dream of Lorna is to have a snack bar with her boyfriend, Sokol, and in order to see this dream fulfilled she agrees to make another fake marriage with a Russian, but Claudy is in the way. Fabio, the orchestrator of the whole plan, will not wait for the divorce of Lorna and Claudy.
Initially, Lorna agrees with Fabio's plan to get rid of Claudy through an overdose. But moved by Claudy's determination to stay clean, Lorna pleads with Fabio to wait for the divorce. But Fabio does not understand why Lorna cares since an overdose will not look suspicious as drug addicts always relapse.
Fabio continues to try to stay clean by locking himself in the apartment and asking Lorna to get her drugs at the pharmacy that will help with the pain. One night, the pain becoming unbearable, he asks Lorna to call his doctor and take him to the hospital. There, he begs Lorna to stay with him until the nurse comes. He leans against her like a child needing protection.
In order to get a quick divorces, Lorna decides to hurt herself and make it look like Claudy did it. She does not however manage to convince Claudy to beat her and ends up hurting herself at the hospital and crying out for help. The nurse who looks after her agrees to act as a witness for the police report. The same day, Lorna goes to the station and fills out a report. Fabio, who seems to control everything and has her followed, asks her why she went to the police station. She explains that the divorce will be quicker since she has found a way to make it look like Claudy is an abusive and violent husband.
The next day, Claudy gets out of the hospital and goes to see Lorna at her workplace. He asks for money (Claudy has asked Lorna to carry his money for him in order to prevent him from using it for drugs) to buy cigarettes and to prepare a meal for later, when she gets back from work.
Later that night, Lorna finds that a letter from the judge has arrived, granting her a quick divorce. She leaves a depressed Claudy behind to let Fabio know the news. When she tells Fabio that the divorce will now only take a month, he does not look pleased. She asks him to talk to the Russians and see if they will accept the delay. A short while after, as Lorna crosses the street to enter her apartment, Fabio in his taxi honks and as she gets close, tells her that the Russian has accepted to wait.
At home, Claudy has invited over one of his drug dealers. Lorna forces the drug dealer out, locks the door, throws out the key and makes love to Claudy as a way to help him.
The next day, Claudy and Lorna, looking like a content couple, go to the shop to get a new pair of keys and a bike for Claudy to pass the time and take his mind off his addiction. Lorna frolics next to him after she agrees to see him at noon, at her work for a quick hello.
On the next scene, Lorna chooses carefully a pair of jeans that she puts in a bag that contained Claudy's belonging. Then, she goes to the morgue where she gives the clothes and asks to see Claudy one more time. Later, she packs up a bag under the watchful eye of Fabio and Spirou, his assitant. Fabio tells her it was necessary to get rid of Claudy as the Russians would not have waited. He explains that she would not have accepted the truth about his decision, so he could not have told her. He offers her a thousand euros for staying with Claudy and helping him out with his addiction. Lorna does not take the money. As they are heading out, two detectives ask to speak with Lorna. They question her about Claudy and at some point she tears up. The detectives leave, apparently convinced of her sincerity and innocence.
Lorna goes back to her old apartment, finds a place to rent for the snack bar with Sokol. She also meets the Russian guy she is going to marry. She accepts the money Fabio gives her for her future role and even takes the 1,000 euros that she had refused before. In the meantime, she discovers that she's pregnant. She goes to the hospital to get an abortion, but finds that she cannot do it. She does not wait for the ultrasound but runs out of the consultation room. When she tells Fabio that she's pregnant, he insists upon an abortion, mumbling that Sokol and she are crazy for not being careful. Lorna goes to the bank to open an account for her unborn child. The clerk tells her that the money can only be transferred to an actual account upon her child's birth. When the clerk asks for the baby's last name, she says "Moreau" which is Claudy's last name. Despite Fabio's interdiction to talk about it, Lorna brings up the matter of a baby to the Russian in their second meeting. The Russian says, through his interpreter, that a baby is out of the question and Fabio gets angry that Lorna brought it up to him. After the Russians's departure, Fabio roughs out Lorna and shouts that she must do exactly what he tells her. Lorna crouches down, holding her stomach.
At the hospital where Fabio takes her, the doctor tells Lorna she is not pregnant. But Lorna seems convinced that she is. On her way to her hospital room where they want to keep her overnight, she meets the doctor who took care of Claudy. She asks the doctor if she remembers her, explains that she is Claudy's wife and requests that the doctor come say hi to her later.
Fabio realizing that be can no longer use Lorna, meets up with her and Sokol, takes back a good amount of the money he had given her. The next day, Lorna has once again packed up all her things and Fabio takes her sim card from her cell phone before she enters the car that Spirou, Fabio's assitant, is driving. In the car, when Lorna asks Spirou why he has not taken the highway, he says that he needs to get to a gas station. When the next gas station is in view, Lorna tells him that she will use the bathroom while he puts gas. But Spirou says that he must go into a specific gas station, not that one. Lorna realizes then that Spirou has received the order to kill her. She asks Spirou to stop because she needs to relieve herself. He accepts to let her go pee, but holds her bag. Outside, Lorna takes a rock that she hides under her coat, as she crouches down to pee. Back in the car, she hits Spirou twice and runs out of the car, into the woods.
The movie ends as Lorna arrives at a little cabin in the woods where she decides to spend the night. She goes out for woods and talks to the baby she imagines in her stomach, telling it that she won't let it die like she let Claudy die.
|
|||||