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    Le Silence de Lorna – Dardenne Brothers Mafia Caper

    By Anette Unger | August 11, 2008

    At the Cannes Film Festival, Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne presented their latest work Le Silence de Lorna (Belgium/France/Italy/Germany, 2008) – a film about the Mafia’s racketeering and the passionate path of an Albanian emigrant in Belgium. Lorna, an Albanian woman who lives in Belgium, has one single dream: together with her boyfriend Solko she wants to set up a snack bar. In order to be able to realize her wish, Lorna becomes part of a devilish plan, stage-managed by a middleman of the Russian Mafia, taxi driver Fabio.

    She commits herself to a fictitious marriage with the junkie Claudy which enables her to become a Belgium citizen. The following plan is to kill Claudy with an overdose to free Lorna for the marriage with a Russian gangster so that everyone involved can hugely cash in on the scam in the end. Will Lorna break her silence? The abyss of the human soul, the readiness to stick-at-nothing in order to pursue one’s own plan – once more, the film by the Dardenne brothers mirrors the dark side of life. The talented young Albanian actress Arta Dobroshi, however, radiates in The Silence of Lorna with her delicate, cream-faced elegance. She is the angelic antipole to the gloomy Mafiosi who she keeps company with.

    When Claudy, her heroin addict husband, survives a drug withdrawal, she represents the human factor: she falls in love with Claudy and is expecting a child after a shared night of love. She tries hard to prevent Claudy from his death sentence. But Fabio and his fellows are clever, too. Now they also put pressure on Lorna: an abortion is just another means for them to pursue their unscrupulous plan. With her silent readiness to make sacrifices and a devotedness that is close to self abandonment, Lorna can finally escape their evil scheme. In the end, leaning on a religious metaphor, the Dardenne brothers show a likeness to Mary – an expecting Lorna in a lonely hut in the woods.

    Whether she is creating her own dream world, or whether she actually represents the angelic personification of a better life, is for the viewer to interpret. Doubtlessly, with The Silence of Lorna Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne have succeeded in creating a social drama of enormous impact heightened by a powerful visual language.

    – Anette Unger

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