Dheepan – Film Review by Frank L

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Writers: Jacques Audiard (dialogue), Jacques Audiard (screenplay)
Stars: Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Claudine Vinasithamby

A refugee camp in Sri Lanka, at the end of the Tamil Tiger Civil war is where the story begins. There are three principal characters: Dheepan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan), Yalini (Kaliaswari Srinivasan) and Illayal (Claudine Vinasithomby). Dheepan is a Tamil fighter and Yalini, a woman who abducts Illayal, a child in the camp, in order to fit the false identity documents which Dheepan and she have. They are meant to be husband, wife and child. The documents get them to France as refugees and eventually to a god-forsaken collection of soulless apartment buildings in the middle of nowhere. These buildings, although nominally run by a statutory authority, are under the effective control of lawless thugs. Dheepan becomes a caretaker to these buildings. He is assiduous and industrious in looking after the buildings but this quality draws the attention of the thugs. The three relationships between the “father”, “mother” and “daughter” come under a variety of strains because of the underlying falsehoods. Inevitably the centre cannot hold and the trio’s journey takes an unlikely twist.

Antonythasan Jesuthasan was a Tamil fighter who has lived in France for the last twenty years as a refugee. He had not previously acted but auditioned for a small part in the movie. His own story mirrors that of Dheepan to an extent. Audiard was fascinated by his story and eventually came to offer him the lead role. It was a brave decision but Jesuthasan has justified it in spades. His performance is one of conviction. He amply demonstrates the strange sense of misalignment which a refugee faces on a daily basis as he tries to come to terms with the alien environment in which he must live. His lack of ballast and belonging is also mirrored in the performances of Srinivasan and Vinasithomby as each battles with their own displacement.

Audiard converts these three refugees, who are for the authorities mere bureaucratic names in a computer or just another series of numbers who must be “handled” into human beings who have daily lives with emotions. The somewhat unlikely ending mars the serious attempt to make real some of the daily difficulties a refugee faces. Given the current refugee problem arising from the various conflicts in the Middle East, Audiard makes his audience aware of the multiplicity of problems a refugee faces. Audiard in this impressive piece of social realism brings to the foreground some of the resulting social issues.