"Earlier this year, the Cannes film festival saw a triumphant new appearance from European cinema's kings of social realism and social conscience. The Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, now 74 and 71, presented a movie that is one of their very best: Jeunes Meres or Young Mothers, a deeply compassionate, intelligent drama about a home for teen mothers or mothers-to-be in the directors' home town of Liege in Belgium."
"These young women are faced with the existential question: is it sensible to give their infants up for adoption, or a fundamental loss of moral courage? The Dardennes have become known for intensely naturalist performances and handheld camerawork, radical simplicity and clarity. They have won the Cannes Palme d'Or twice, firstly for their drama Rosetta in 1999, about a young woman who must look after her troubled mother in a trailer park starring the then nonprofessional teenager Emilie Dequenne."
"Luc replies: We went in to research a maternity home with the idea of one character. Then we saw the life there, the five or six young mothers. And this was new for us, to envisage a whole group. We were attracted by it. We didn't want to do a choral ensemble piece. We wanted each to have their story. And we decided that there would be light at the end of each tunnel. Sometimes a fragile, feeble light. But we didn't want failure."
Young Mothers (Jeunes Meres) is a deeply compassionate, intelligent drama set in a Liège maternity home for teen mothers and mothers-to-be. The film follows five or six young women confronting whether to give infants up for adoption, framing the choice as an existential moral dilemma. The Dardenne brothers employ intensely naturalist performances, handheld camerawork, radical simplicity and clarity, and they aim to offer light at each character's tunnel rather than failure. The brothers previously won the Cannes Palme d'Or twice for Rosetta (1999) and L'Enfant (2005). They researched maternity homes and chose to develop individual stories within a group setting.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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