“Lorna’s Silence” begins as an astutely realist character study. Then, with two magnificent yet quiet turns, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s drama reveals itself to be a haunting, wounded fable of love and guilt. Lovely Kosovan actor Arta Dobroshi plays the title character. As the film opens, Lorna is making a deposit at a bank and requesting an appointment with a loan officer.
An Albanian immigrant, she is in an arranged marriage with Claudy for a price and documents. The movie is so beautifully stingy with early information that one feels immediately in danger of ruining its revelations.
Suffice it to say, Lorna is pragmatic, disciplined. She has plans for herself and her lover Sokol (Alban Ukaj).
Nattering, hunched, Claudy looks like he’s suffering from a wasting disease. He’s not. He’s a heroin addict. Or, as mobster and arranger Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione) consistently refers to him, a “junkie.”
Fabio conducts his business from behind the wheel of a taxi. Rongione smartly underplays his criminality. His contemptuous designation gains potency as the movie unfolds.
Dardenne regular Jeremie Renier plays Claudy with the addict’s infuriating need and galling demand. He follows his wife around their apartment, promising to go clean, begging for her help.
Although Lorna comes to believe him, his desire is at cross-purposes with Fabio’s arrangement. The plan had already turned dark before we were invited into the story: A Russian mobster needs papers, too. So Fabio has decided on a faster way than divorce to free Lorna from Claudy.
Amid the plot’s methodical unfolding, something unexpected happens. Alas, it is not the last time.
“Lorna’s Silence” is one of those films that constantly points us back to its title. (“The Hurt Locker,” anyone?) What does it mean? Which silence is it hinting at?
Certainly, as an accomplice, Lorna is required to keep mum. But the issue of silence goes deeper still. As she tries to maneuver morally in an immoral situation, Lorna begins to keep her own counsel.
Never divulging Claudy’s precarious situation to him, she tries to keep him safe.
Perhaps it is stating the obvious, but “Lorna’s Silence” could not work if Dobroshi weren’t so stirring as a sinner who can’t deny her better angels. From the start, she makes it difficult to remember she’s been a willing participant in a slowly evolving crime.
The Dardennes are masters of their brand of realist cinema. Over the years, the brothers’ move from documentaries to narrative features has been handsomely rewarded.
They are in elite company with two Palme d’Ors from Cannes. In 2008, “Lorna’s Silence” won the festival’s best screenplay award.
Still, “Lorna’s Silence” feels like a departure from 2005’s winner, “The Child.”
The duo has trimmed back the hand-held camera, the close-ups, to provide more context. They’ve moved the action from the small Belgian town in which they were raised to a nearby city more abuzz with street life. It makes Lorna’s aloneness more pronounced.
But nothing underscores our dear Lorna’s solo journey — or its fable-like quality — more than the scenes of her in the woods. She wears red jeans, a red shirt beneath a faux-fur collared jacket.
The wolves are in pursuit.
“LOMA’S SILENCE.”
R for brief sexuality/nudity and language. 1 hour, 45 minutes. Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. Starring Arta Dobroshi, Jere- mie Renier and Fabrizio Rongione. In French with English subtitles. Opens today at the Mayan.
