The last film of the Dardenne brothers, The Unknown Girl traces the plot of a murder. Jenny, a young doctor from a small town in Belgium, trains her assistant Julien. One evening, exhausted and upset by her intern, she refuses to open the door of her office, preferring not to distort a possible diagnosis because of her fatigue. She will learn the next day that the girl who had rang her doorbell died on the banks of the Meuse, victim of a homicide.
The Unknown Girl is a story about guilt, the one that gradually eats away at Jenny from the murder of this woman whose face she only knows, a ghost girl whose identity the police struggle to restore. Once the homicide is established, the doctor will not stop retracing the victim's journey, reconstructing the complex puzzle of his last night. Methodical, dry and stubborn, Adèle Haenel interprets with talent this character to which it is difficult to attach as it is difficult to access. However, in the gentleness of her gestures and the application she puts into listening to her patients, Jenny reveals a crucial part of her being that is none other than a strong sense of humanity. A trait that explains all the involvement she places in this police investigation that has become a personal fight.
Set in a miserable setting, between the doctor's modest office and apartment and the grey banks of the Meuse, The Unknown Girl is representative of the social misery of these small towns in Belgium, plunged into a leaden economic and moral slump. This film also questions our relationship with immigrant populations, men and women whose ills are largely unknown. Symbol of these forgotten and often rejected peoples, this unknown girl with a tragic destiny shocks us all the more because the current picture of Europe is punctuated by human tragedies linked to exile. By dwelling on the particular fate of this anonymous woman, Jenny offers her a post-mortem dignity that she had previously been denied.
The Unknown Girl, a realistic film
Based on an interesting screenplay, The Unknown Girl is a realistic and incisive film, in its way of depicting both the various manifestations of guilt as well as the misery affecting its characters and places. However, it is difficult to dive completely into the work that suffers from the coldness of its main heroine and the more than approximate acting of a large part of its actors.
The interpretation of Adèle Haenel is irreproachable, embodying this character of a destabilizing coldness and yet animated by the most beautiful motivations. You can now make your opinion on this work of the Dardenne brothers by getting the DVD of The Unknown Girl, distributed by the house Diaphana. The latter revolves around a sober and simple menu, just like its content. The sound and the image are qualitative, purified of any effect of style, totally put at the service of their purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz7MUtFCYdA
