In the beginning of the film, one feels that Sonia, an eighteen year old gentle mother is the main character of L'infant, and the film would revolve around her struggle of bringing up her kid as well as getting along with her criminal husband. But soon enough, Bruno, the father, takes the main stage. He runs a gang with two teenage boys. He steals and sells everything. He is also devoid of any human emotion. When Sonia returns from the hospital with the newborn child, she finds that Bruno has rented her apartment to another couple. Desperate Sonia seeks out Bruno and finds him in a traffic signal. It seems that when Sonia was in hospital giving birth to their child, Bruno never visited her. Bruno is no way emotionally attached with the child. Interestingly Sonia doesn't apparently have any problems with these. Sonia is also very much aware of what Bruno does for a living. She gets on with him all right, and the film depicts some wonderful love and fun sequences between the two.Few days later while waiting in a long queue, Sonia tells Bruno to take Jimmy (their kid) out for a stroll, Bruno accepts the offer and on his way decides to sell off the child. A decision that comes as a shock. He makes one or two phone calls and tells them that they have taken this decision jointly. He gets five thousand Euros in exchange, and returns with the empty perambulator. Bruno tells Sonia and shows her the money he has got in exchange. He also naively tells Sonia that they can have another kid, what's the big deal. Sonia faints and falls on the ground. Bruno didn't expect this. He never though about how Sonia would react, didn't think about the consequences. He takes Sonia in his laps and goes out to search for a cab that will take them to the hospital. Now, here happens an interesting thing, in the beginning I said that Bruno is devoid of any human emotion, yes that was true till this point, now it seems a bit different. If that was really the case then Bruno could have simply left Sonia there and escaped. I mean, that would not be surprising from him. He is someone who can simply sell off their nine day old kid without even bothering about kid's mother. When you really see him doing that, you kind of refuse to believe whatever that is going on. You find it stretched too far. What I mean is, one can then always stretch it a bit further. But the fact that Bruno can't leave Sonia there, proves that he has some attachment with her. Seeing Sonia like this he also decides to take the child back. Well, he had some human possibility still left with him. From here on the film is quite predictable. We now know the limits of Bruno's inhuman side, but his human possibilities are still unexplored. Bruno will understand his mistakes and will apologies (seems like his first apology in life), though it takes some time for him to do so, and in between another incident happens. But let's not go into that, Bruno will cry his heart out and Sonia will forgive him. And the film will end with this positive note, well done, great, whatever, anyways… I have two points to make, one, who is Sonia? I don't know where she comes from; don't know how she manages to fall in love with someone like Bruno. And even after everything she goes to meet Bruno in the jail and again, manages to forgive him. It seems very strange to me. Is it Christian charity? Is it the so called love and forgiving nature of womanhood? And second, the film ends on a positive note with Bruno realizing, that's fine. But isn't the final redemption a bit inconsistent, a bit forced? I have seen films where illegitimate actions are portrayed as cool and having no consequences, I have my share of problems with that thing too, but really we have been seeing criminals like Bruno's final redemption for ages in films, and probably it will continue for ages too, it's a bit weird for me, that's all.The film, L'infant uses a lot of hand held camera, which gives a marvelous result, it has natural sounds and no background music, making wise, it's definitely non-Hollywood and that is great. Both Bruno and Sonia were amazing in their performance. The film also uses long takes at certain moments remarkably well. Two instances come to mind right now, one when Bruno leaves the kid on the floor and waits outside for the money, the camera stays with him, and secondly when Bruno and Steve hide themselves from the cop. We don't get to see what is happening on the other side, and it really builds up the suspense. A similar treatment was also affectively used in No Country for Old Men among others, and it can be very moving if properly used.

A truly brilliant film. It follows Bruno (Jérémie Renier), an amoral and simple man who performs petty crimes to survive after his girlfriend Sonia becomes pregnant. They seem to be doing 'well' enough, high on each other's apparently adolescent passion, until Bruno calmly commits a surprising (but not irreversible) act, one which tells us so much of his simplistic and unknowing nature. This man clearly has no understanding of the concept of fatherhood. Without giving too much away, this act causes Bruno to follow a seemingly never-ending path of desperation and misery which reveals his frustrating but tragic immaturity. Obvious, yes, but the title of course refers to Bruno, a man with either an unconventional or perhaps more likely no coherent moral understanding of life. He is like the newborn baby, in need of Sonia and unable to survive on his own wits. Superb, matter-of-fact performance from Renier made bitingly realistic through the Dardennes characteristic close framing and tracking and poetic naturalism (built through their ambient use of light and sound. We must interpret the characters and events ourselves. The truth is concealed through long silences and slow pacing) and which truly makes you feel like you are an observer to every scene.

Continuing their exploration into the human condition, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's fourth feature, The Child, brings us into the world of Bruno (Jeremie Renier) and Sonia (Deborah Francois) a young couple who have just had their first child. When we are introduced to the couple, it is after Sonia has gotten out of the hospital and she returns home to find that Bruno, who hadn't gone to see her at all, has sublet their apartment to strangers for a few days to make some quick cash. It's a hell of an introduction for Bruno, and things only digress from there as we find out that he's willing to do just about anything to make some money.The title of the film could literally be applied to the child itself, the catalyst for the narrative events that occur, but it's no stretch to say it instead refers to Bruno, more of a child than anyone else in the picture. He is a young man with seemingly no regard for others and no moral compass, refusing to get a regular job, living from one scheme or theft to another and using pubescent children to run thefts for him. This is a fascinating character to study and one that is ripe for exploration from filmmakers as talented and intimate as the Dardennes.They once again bring their trademark style into the streets, with no musical score and the use of hand-held cameras that bring the audience along with Bruno, seemingly never staging shots but instead letting them all come organically, whether they be out of focus or off-angled. It puts us right there in the dirt with him and is at least part of what makes watching him so fascinating, as opposed to deeply frustrating.Bruno is a deplorable creature, but there's something about him that drew me in, that intrigued me all the way and when he was in danger actually wanted him to escape. I cared for this wandering soul, something that I never would have expected from the opening stages of the film. A lot of this credit must go to the Dardennes, but plenty should be shared with Jeremie Renier, whose portrayal of Bruno is never one of judgment but also never one that tries to make him any more likable than he is supposed to be. The authenticity of this performance is tremendous and there is never a moment where it feels that you're watching an actor perform. It's a shockingly lived-in portrayal, something that comes with the territory of being in a Dardenne production.The brothers restrain their actors, making them pull in their emotions rather than let them out, a technique which is much more interesting and natural than having a shouting match occur every five seconds. Instead, it's the physicality of this world that is able to make the most impression. Bruno and Sonia live very much on the edge, sleeping in a makeshift shack by the beach or homeless shelters at night, and there's a grittiness that the Dardennes are able to achieve which is astounding. You can feel the rocks in their hands, and when moments come like Bruno getting beaten or having to jump in freezing water occur, they are the real emotional spikes of the story and the outlets for all of the anguish that is bottled up throughout.Bruno is certainly the child that the title refers to, but Sonia isn't much of an adult either, the two of them horse-playing constantly from the beginning, whether it's spraying each other with soda or tossing rocks at one another even when they have their infant in their arms. These are tragically irresponsible youths, but in Sonia you can see something is changing with their new responsibility. The film explores the love between a mother and child in a delicate, heartfelt manner that is a stark contrast to the modern decay explored through Bruno. For while Sonia is already experiencing her change, Bruno still has a little bit to fall.The Child is a coming-of-age story in a most peculiar fashion, as Bruno's selfishness strips away the world around him and he has to realize the person he is. He's forced to look in the mirror and assess the image that everyone else looks at. The intimacy, the vividness of the Dardennes work is unparalleled in modern cinema and it makes moments that could feel pedestrian in another films become never ending sequences of breathtaking suspense here. When Bruno and one of his young hoodlums steal a purse and are pursued, my heart practically stopped out of fear and exhilaration. They make you feel every moment of this character's world, and the film is as much of an exploration into the ravaged, decayed society as it is a study of Bruno himself.The Dardennes keep the high emotions in check for the majority of the film, and when they finally allow us a moment to let it out at the end, there's a feeling of completion with these characters. The young couple weeps together openly, but it's a scene void of dialogue between the two and that leaves it's true meaning open to interpretation for the viewer. Is it a moment of forgiveness, of reprieve or just a devastating act of agony, unable to come to terms with the circumstances of life they have put themselves in? No matter what it means, it's an incredibly powerful moment that allows for a full emotional catharsis for both the characters and the audience.

Short, direct and poignant,'L'Infant' is the story of Bruno, an irredeemably feckless young man, who finds himself utterly out of his depth on becoming a father. Bruno's sense of irresponsibility is tragic, but so extreme as to be comic as well; yet he wins our sympathy because he is not innately wicked, and even acts in accordance with a certain moral code: it's just that this code is that of a child, and wholly insufficient for adult life. The film is shot in a sparse, documentary style, there's a little visual poetry in its depiction of the underbelly of urban Belgium, but in essence this is a well-acted, fresh and economical movie, without pretensions of any sort; but whose realism imparts power, particularly to a couple of understated, but truly horrific scenes that made me nervous in my seat.