Jacques Audiard‘s Dheepan is finally arriving in the United States about a year after its Palme d’Or win, and so it only follows that a new trailer — following two that have arrived in the past several months — is now hitting the market. I would think that those who’ve seen one have more or less seen them all, though I’d contend this, here, is the most effective look at the picture yet, and maybe the one that most helps me understand how it won the top prize at a festival housing several great films. (There’a a neat and audience-grabbing use of subtitles, too.)
We liked it an awful lot, having said that, “Until losing its cool in the third act and ending on a relatively soft note, French veteran Jacques Audiard‘s Dheepan is a muscularly directed dramatic thriller about the difficulties of starting over and the inevitability of violence. Clear-eyed, tightly wound, and cinematically and psychologically immersive, it’s a furious ride of a movie that actually has something to say.”
See the trailer below, as well as two clips (via Apple):
Synopsis:
Dheepan is a Tamil freedom fighter, a Tiger. In Sri Lanka, the Civil War is reaching its end, and defeat is near. Dheepan decides to flee, taking with him two strangers – a woman and a little girl – hoping that they will make it easier for him to claim asylum in Europe. Arriving in Paris, the ‘family’ moves from one temporary home to another until Dheepan finds work as the caretaker of a run-down housing block in the suburbs. He works to build a new life and a real home for his ‘wife’ and his ‘daughter’, but the daily violence he confronts quickly reopens his war wounds, and Dheepan is forced to reconnect with his warrior’s instincts to protect the people he hopes will become his true family.
Dheepan will enter a limited release on May 13.