The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

Dheepan

Dheepan | Movie review
15 February 2016
Frances Lai
Avatar
Frances Lai
15 February 2016

Movie and show review

Frances Lai

Dheepan

★★★★★

Release date

21st February 2016

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

Dheepan, winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, is especially resonant at a time when anxieties and tensions prevent a static, ageing Europe from harbouring an influx of people so desperately in need of refuge.

In the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War, a Tamil Tiger fighter must collaborate with a woman and child he has never previously met in order to seek political asylum in France, the three of them assuming the identity of an imperilled family. In forging the semblance of a real family, the three come to rely on each other as much as themselves. In their new life with Dheepan as head of the household, the make-believe family must relive past atrocities when their adopted home resembles the war zone they worked to flee.

The film is elegantly and artfully shot by director Jacques Audiard, employing fades into light and dark to inversely reveal or further obscure. The concluding fight sequence, though only showing fragments of the combatants’ bodies engaging, forcefully captures the visceral action in its entirety. In a role where she is often deprived of speech and grappling with a new language, Kalieaswari Srinivasan gives an exceptional performance as “wife” Yalini, conveying more in a single look than any dialogue ever could. The most gut-wrenching moments precipitate when the family’s illusion of stability and security is ruptured.

The film uncovers some of the cultural current of banlieues in the periphery of French society, at odds with the hegemonic ideal of national identity. Similarly, Dheepan touches upon but does not fully flesh out the experience of being a newly arrived immigrant, nor does it adequately convey the discomfort of being the projected “Other” beyond what is relayed within a few lines of dialogue. Though not especially revelatory, viewed without the preconceptions that the prestigious Palme d’Or heralds, Dheepan is still a poignant film that merits watching.

★★★★★

Frances Lai

Dheepan is released nationwide on 21st February 2016.

Watch the trailer for Dheepan here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qB8_Q9oTuw

Related Itemsreview

More in Movie reviews

Body Brokers

★★★★★
Umar Ali
Read More

Mouthpiece

★★★★★
Georgia Howlett
Read More

Sentinelle

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

The Father

★★★★★
Jonathan Marshall
Read More

Coming 2 America

★★★★★
Musanna Ahmed
Read More

Eye of the Storm

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

The Dissident

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Moxie

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

Notturno

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Frances Lai

Dheepan

★★★★★

Release date

21st February 2016

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Celebrate International Women’s Day with a Bombay Sapphire Cocktails & Create masterclass
    Food & Drinks
  • Kings of Leon – When You See Yourself
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Limbo
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Women in film introduce favourite female-directed features for new BFI series from 8th March
    Cinema & Tv
  • Delectible drinks that would make the perfect Mother’s Day gift
    Food & Drinks
  • Taste (Vị)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Black Country, New Road at Southbank Centre Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Body Brokers
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Mouthpiece
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Sentinelle
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Black Country, New Road at Southbank Centre Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Vicious Fun
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • Berlinale 2021 winners: The full list
    Berlinale
  • WandaVision
    ★★★★★
    disney
  • Coming 2 America
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Suede at the Forum | Live review
BAFTAs 2016: The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road sweep the awards