Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Turfseer Some of you may have seen the Dardennes brothers 2011 film "The Kid with a Bike," which starred Jérémie Renier as the father of a disturbed 12 year old whom he abandons. In the Dardennes brothers first significant (1996) feature, La Promesse, you can see Renier as the troubled 15 year old protagonist, Igor, who shines in his initial foray into the feature film landscape. Shot in a gritty cinema verité style significantly without music, La Promesse chronicles the unhealthy relationship between Igor and an amoral father, Roger (Oliver Gourmet). Roger proves to be cannily drawn, a bad man who is still fleshed out with some sympathetic characteristics. Despite beating Igor at times, the point is made that he still cares for the boy (in his own half-assed way). Roger houses immigrants but also exploits them by overcharging for rent and undercharging their pay. When Amidou, an immigrant from Burkina Faso and one of Roger's construction workers, falls off a scaffold, Igor tries to save the man by applying a tourniquet to his bleeding leg. Roger, fearing that he'll be discovered by government inspectors, throws the tourniquet away, allowing the man to bleed to death. To add insult to injury, he dumps the body right at the construction site and covers the corpse with cement. Before Roger arrives on the scene, Igor promises the dying man that he'll take care of his wife, Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and her infant child. At the beginning of the film, Igor is introduced as a juvenile delinquent of sorts, who steals money from a woman while working part-time at a service station. The promise turns the boy into a responsible citizen as he ends up trying to help Assita after the husband's disappearance. The uncaring Roger even goes so far as paying a man to scare Assita into leaving by attempting to rape her (the subterfuge involves Roger pretending to scare the man off before he actually commits the crime). It gets worse when Roger creates a fake telegram which is delivered to Assita, falsely claiming Amidou is in Germany and wants her to meet him there. Only Igor's last minute intervention prevents Roger from delivering the beleaguered widow into the hands of sex traffickers. Assita is effectively drawn as she's not a complete goody two-shoes. There is a disturbing scene of animal sacrifice (a rooster is sliced up as part of her rituals) and later she has a breakdown, accusing Igor of infecting her child with some sort of disease. Fortunately Assita comes to her senses and they bring the child to a hospital for treatment. There, a sympathetic nurse allows Assita to use her identity papers so she can leave the country to live with a family member. There is a harrowing scene at the climax where Roger catches up to Igor at the service station where he used to work, with the boy preventing the father from chasing after them by clamping a chain to his leg. All of this is pretty gripping but a bit predictable in the end as Igor is committed to helping the woman. Igor's confession is indeed satisfying but the Dardennes brothers abruptly break things off and keep us guessing as to what the consequences are of Assita finding out her husband is dead. Does she go to the police? Does Roger prevent her from acting or pay her off? Does Assita finally turn around and indeed move in with a family members in another country? What does Roger do to Igor? The Dardennes brothers wish to leave things to our imagination-not sure that is the best tack to take here as the story sort of demands more of a conclusive denouement. La Promesse is indeed a gritty portrait of a disturbed father-son relationship as well as a damning chronicle of the exploitation of immigrants by unscrupulous men whose desire for monetary profit outweighs any humanitarian concerns.

jandesimpson The first ten minutes were not exactly promising! I remember thinking, another hand-held camera job, this time set in the backstreets of a Belgian industrial city - yet another rite of passage tale - unprepossessing youth steals a pensioner's handbag from a car in the garage where he works, while his father, a squint-eyed, piggy-faced fatty, runs a racket fleecing illegal immigrants from the Balkans and Africa. However what is wholly remarkable about "La Promesse" is the way it slowly sucks the viewer into a realisation that this is not just a piece of documentary-style realism but an uncompromisingly honest study of character and conscience. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that no other film new to British TV last year moved or excited me as much. The performance by Jeremie Renier as the youth Igor is a tour-de-force. He is on screen for practically the entire film and it is his search for integrity after a dying African (one of his father's "clients") exacts from him a promise to assist his wife and baby, that forms the work's core. Igor has to come to terms with alienating his father, who, although a selfish and dishonest brute, has real affection for his son; parental/filial warmth is displayed when they drunkenly sing together in a cafe. But what the film finally says with such devestating certainly is that even integrity is something that can go unappreciated and ignored by the one towards whom it is intended. The ending speaks of a terrible price paid for redemption.

Moira Rose This film was a gem and I look forward to seeing "Rosetta" by the same filmmakers, although I missed it back in '99.The story has a gritty documentary feel in its depiction of lower-class immigrant experience in Belgium, but nonetheless is dramatically compelling because of the tension between the father and the son. I haven't seen this side of modern European urban life treated in film this well.

jonathandoe_se7en Mild *SPOILERS*La Promesse, is the story of Igor, a young tear-away who spends his time robbing old ladies who stop by at the garage he works at, working on his go-cart, or helping his father in his work. His work however is helping immigrants across into Belgium and giving them lodging at a house that he is restoring. His father dominates Igor's entire life; that is until Amidou, one of the workers is accidentally killed... The rest of the film focuses on Igor making good on his promise to Amidou that he will look after his wife and baby. The film uses this set-up to look at the power of loyalty, Igor's loyalty to his father, or to the promise he made. This is the first film that I've seen from the Dardenne brothers, but I defiantly look forward to seeing the more recent film Rosetta (1999), their careful handling of the young actor Jérémie Rénier is superb, finding both the subtle innocents and the growing adult awareness that is growing within him (this is a coming of age story) not to mention the fantastic performance from Olivier Gourmet as the boy's father, a man who will beat his son one minute than joke with him the next. There may be some bad points with the film, for instance the central relationship between Igor and Amidou isn't developed enough for us to believe he would willingly stick by his promise, but these hardly deter from this brilliantly acted character piece.7/10