Any story about immigrants who escape a war-torn country has high stakes for its characters. “Dheepan” adds another layer of unease.
Here, the members of a Tamil immigrant “family” are actually strangers to each other. In a brief prologue in Sri Lanka — a country ravaged by decades of civil war — a man, a woman, and an orphan girl pretend to be related so they can use the exit visas intended for an actual family now deceased.
Taken to France, they are sent to a housing development outside Paris. Dheepan (played by Jesuthasan Antonythasan), the man pretending to be a husband and father, is given a job as the custodian of the place.
The woman is Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan), who really wants to go to England to reunite with a cousin but must stay in France for the sake of the pretense.
Their “daughter” is Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby), who can’t help but project her need for parents onto these two strangers. She attends school, where she has a predictably difficult time.
Much of the poignancy of the early part of the film comes from how these people relate to each other. Illayaal would like a hug when she is dropped off at school, because that’s how other parents take leave of their children. But here, is a hug a masquerade, or can real feelings develop between these three lost souls?
The criminal element in the housing development will become more important as the film goes on. In a way, this steers the movie toward a more conventional finish, even though it remains intriguing throughout.
“Dheepan” is directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, and it shares a few affinities with his 2009 masterpiece, “A Prophet.” It doesn’t have that movie’s forward drive or its astonishing complexity, however.
Audiard uses this specific situation as a way of humanizing the immigrant’s journey, a huge issue in Europe right now. Seeing it from the inside — right down to the bewildering feeling of having other people talk too fast in a language not your own — is a compelling way to portray the disorienting experience.
“Dheepan” won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, possibly because it tackles an issue drawn directly from the headlines. That’s part of its power, but it has none of the self-importance of an “issue movie.” This is an intimate view from ground level, where the ground keeps shifting beneath your feet.
“Dheepan” 3 stars
A compelling drama about Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka, whose new home life in France is complicated by the fact that the members of this “family” don’t actually know each other. Director Jacques Audiard falters with the conventional climax, but otherwise the film is an intimate portrait of an immigrant experience. In Tamil and French, with English subtitles.
Rating: R, for violence, nudity
Showing: Guild 45th theater
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