Precarity, Liminality, mobility: childhood in the cinema of the Dardenne Brothers

Abstract

Using the work of Pamela Robertson Wojcik, this article positions the Dardennes treamtment of the child as an example of ‘slow death cinema’ (Robertson Wojcik, 2021) an exntesion of Laurent Berlant’s conception of the ‘slow death’ (2007). In these films children are not orientated towards a hopeful and socially mobile conception of adulthood but rather left to explore the micro-borders of Searaing, moving through and engaging with this depressed geography without ever transcending, leaving or developing beyond it. These children are representative of a ‘perpetual motion in place’ (Robertson Wojcik, 2021), in that they move constantly - on bikes, trains, busses, cars and motorbikes - but never leave. Whilst there may be some moments of moral or interpersonal development, children within the films of the Dardennes are an expression of an ultimaltely ambigious rather than a hopeful future. This article argues that this physichal precarity and immobility is tied to questions of class and inequality and is expressed as an aspect of the Dardennes aestehtic approach. It suggests that whilst, the Dardennes largely avoid explicit investigations of the stystems that underpin social-inequality they explore these themes most productively in their use of the ‘immobile’ child.