(The Ax, The Child)
Imagine, just for a moment, that David Brent, after losing his beloved job at the end of Season 2 of The Office, returned in the Christmas Specials not as a travelling salesman-cum-recording artist-cum-B celebrity, but as Travis Bickle toting a gun, a grudge and a whole lot of killing in mind. This is pretty much what Bruno gets up to The Ax. He’s in the paper business, gets made redundant courtesy of restructuring/downsizing/merging, goes unemployed for two years before realising this: that if he “eliminates” the competition (i.e. prospective candidates), he’ll be back pulping trees in no time. And you know what they say: pop a cap in their ass, and you’ll solve everything.

Costa-Gavras might be trying to stick it to the corporations here, but what The Ax is really about is preservation of The Lifestyle. Bruno doesn’t have a hatred for capitalism – it’s what gives him and his family the house in the ‘burbs with all its furnishings and creature comforts – but a burning rage for whatever reason it is that he can’t get a job (one, too much pride). That he won’t resort to menial employment like his wife or fellow out-of-work jobseekers (some of which he whacks anyway) only serves to amplify the fact that he’s selfish, morally bankrupt, and determined to be a well-paid drone in the corporate scheme-of-things. Bruno might be angry at capitalism, but he hardly wants to get rid of it.

Of course, that everyone’s evil or corrupt in this film works to its own benefit, and as a tight-fisted satire matched with some pretty dark comedy, it’s almost fiendish enough to belong in the That’s Incredible Cinema programme. It’s this year’s Chaos, I suppose – only the "Men suck, Women rule" brand of feminism has been overrun by the male-dominated theatrics of hunting and gathering in a corporate world. Plus it’s bitterly funny, and not afraid to use violence as a device for humour.

Alternatively, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne aren’t afraid to claw their way to the bottom of the socio-economic pile, and their fascination with youngsters in peril is becoming as frequent in their cinema as their preoccupation with the backs of people’s heads. The Child is formatted identically to Rosetta and The Son – scoreless, taut, and perforated by a wandering over-the-shoulder point of view – which is a tribute in the sense that all the Dardenne's films, without fail, draw you into the plight at hand, and don’t let go. Expertly, it’s pivoted on a single, rash judgement in haste by another Bruno – a petty bottom dwelling thief who chooses to sell his baby son, only to regret the decision soon after. It’s a monumental fuck up, but one that human beings, especially those in desperate circumstances, are entirely prone to. Granted, he pays for of it: he’s outcast by his girlfriend, thugs demand his money, and he botches a handbag raid that escalates into, of all things, a chase scene (!). What the Dardennes are addressing isn’t too dissimilar from the The Ax – Costa-Gavras satirising what the brothers have gone to with realism – and yet there’s forgiveness, redemption, and a much stronger message vis-ŕ-vis capitalism at work: that those on the lower rungs will be exploited, mistreated and sometimes forced into the unthinkable. Appropriately, it won the Palm d’Or.—TW