Le gamin au vélo
Tags: revenge

Plot synopsis:
The story begins with Cyril, a 11-year-old boy in a children's home in the working class town of Seraing near Liege, attempting to reach his father by phone. His single father, no mother is ever mentioned, promised him that he would only live there for 30 days. The children's home staff tells him to hang up the phone since once again his father is not going to answer and go outside to play with the other children. Cyril refuses and when the phone is disconnected he bites a carer then runs from the director's office, attempting to abscond by climbing over a fence with two carers on his heels. He is pulled from the fence and restrained before being returned to the children's home, where he is later seen sleeping in a dormitory as forlorn music plays. Soon after Cyril absconds again successfully by lying to a carer that he needs the toilet one day after school, when he is supposed to be outside playing with the other kids. Instead he flees through a side door and takes a city bus alone in search of his father.
To get inside the building he uses the intercom to buzz the medical clinic and lies saying he fell off his bike. He goes directly to his father's apartment though and bangs on the door until a neighbor tells him to go away because no one is there. When the caretakers find him, Cyril flees to a doctor’s office that buzzed him into the building, where he grabs onto a woman in the waiting room. She says she doesn't mind if he holds her, only don't squeeze so tight. Trying to alleviate the situation, the caretakers take Cyril to the empty apartment, confirming that his father has really abandoned him.
The next morning, the woman from the doctor's office, Samantha, shows up with Cyril’s bike. She says she bought it from someone in the projects, but Cyril thinks it was stolen from his dad. He likes Samantha though, and asks if she would take him in on weekends. She agrees and Cyril begins to spend much time at home and in her beauty salon. Samantha and her partner Gilles are very good to Cyril providing for a carefree typical childhood experience. In the local neighborhood he enjoys playing with other children, running errands, and most of all riding his beloved bike for hours on end. Still his refusal to accept his father's abandonment continues to haunt him and prevent him from thriving in this healthy newfound environment even after discovering through an old personal ad that his father actually sold his bike. One night in Samantha's home, where Cyril has his own bedroom, he gets up and goes to Samantha's bedroom, only to run back to his own room when he sees Samantha and Gilles undressed in bed with implied sex. Samantha follows him back to his bedroom to find out what is his problem and he tells her that he is okay but just really wants his father.
In response to this, without permission from neither the children's home director nor Cyril's psychologist, who has advised against doing so to protect his emotional stability, Samantha soon tracks down Cyril's father by contacting the police department and drives Cyril to see him in another town.
When Cyril's father does not come to meet with them at the agreed location and time, they go looking for him at Cyril's insistence. At his new address, they encounter a woman who is hostile and suspicious, but tells them Cyril's father is at her restaurant preparing for the day. At the restaurant, after much knocking and shouting, they finally come face to face with his father, who reluctantly invites Cyril inside while Samantha elects to remain outside to give them privacy. Inside the restaurant, Cyril follows his deliberately aloof father around the kitchen asking why he still has to stay at the children's home to which his father non-chalantly responds "What? They are not nice to you?" giving Cyril no indication of when he will live with him again. Finally, after giving him a snack and writing down his cellphone number to call later, he tells Cyril he has to leave and let him work. He walks Cyril to the door and asks him to wait outside while he speaks privately with Samantha inside. Cyril's father admits to Samantha that he has no intentions of ever raising Cyril alone now that his grandmother is dead, has started a new life which has no place for Cyril, and tells her Cyril is her problem now asking that she tell Cyril this. Back outside Samantha asks Cyril what his father said to him about future contact then marches him straight back to the restaurant door demanding that Cyril's father be honest with his son. His father tells him he must stay either at the children's home or with Samantha, because he doesn't care to see him again. On the way back home, Cyril has such a severe nervous breakdown that Samantha has to stop the car and hold him until he calms down.
Cyril, heartbroken by his father's rejection, turns to Samantha for comfort. But despite Samantha's care, Cyril is soon taken under the wing of Wesker, - an adopted pseudonym from the Resident Evil character - a local gang leader known as "The Dealer". When Cyril stays out late one evening and does not even bother to use his cellphone to call to check in, Samantha and her partner go looking for him and are none too pleased that he's keeping company with ne'er do wells when they happen upon him. Cyril's fresh mouth doesn't help matters and this leads to an argument between the couple with Gilles demanding that Cyril apologize and telling Samantha she must choose between the two of them. Samantha chooses Cyril and Gilles gets out of the car furious. Samantha crying and upset then gets into the driver's seat to drive them home. Cyril still fails to understand how much Samantha cares for him however as he has no concept of unconditional love and continues to run wild with Wesker almost ruining his chance at a good life completely soon after.
One night rather than go out to a movie with his new friend and the boy's parents as he has been invited to do, Cyril throws a temper tantrum and demands to be allowed to go off out to roam the streets alone instead. He doesn't tell Samantha that he's supposed to meet Wesker to commit a crime of assault and theft, but she figures out that something is going on, refuses him permission, and tries her hardest to keep him indoors by blocking the doors. In frustration and uncontrolled anger, Cyril screams he does not want to be with Samantha anymore to try to manipulate her, but she tells him to go right ahead and call the orphanage's director to come pick him up if that's what he wants, but he won't be leaving the house to run the streets like a hooligan regardless. His anger boils over and in a last ditch effort to get his way, Cyril stabs Samantha on the arm with a pair of scissors and bolts out the door while she's crying and in shock. At The Dealer’s prompting, Cyril robs a newsstand owner and his son, knocking them down with a baseball bat. The Dealer, fearing Cyril had been identified, forces him to keep quiet and keep the money. Cyril tries giving it to his father only to be rejected and chased away as his father does not want to get caught by the law. Dejected, Cyril returns to Samantha and finally accepts her care for him. He apologizes for hurting her arm. The robbery is settled through mediation, where Cyril with Samantha by his side apologizes personally to the owner, who accepts, but his son does not and, in a chance encounter, tries to get his revenge. Shortly after the case is sorted out, the shop owner's son against his father's wishes confronts Cyril as he is riding on his bike to buy charcoal for a cookout. In the ensuing chase, Cyril climbs a tree and falls when struck by a rock the son throws. While he lies unconscious, the owner and son discuss what lies to tell the police and dispose of possible evidence that could be used against them, because they figure Cyril is either dead or dying. While they're talking however, Cyril regains consciousness and declines the suggestion that an ambulance be called although he has been knocked senseless. The shop owner and son watch aghast as Cyril picks up the charcoal, gets on his bike, and pedals away as if nothing happened clearly no longer the disturbed and violent child they first encountered.

Review: One that pulls you in by the honest and genuine storytelling told in the Dardenne brothers' trademark naturalistic and guileless tone that is refreshing and sorely missed in today's too often rambunctious style of movies.The story is simple and organic, the kid initially breaking out of foster care to find his father, and his bike both of which give him some identity and purpose in the world.
Some characters are good (Samantha), some not so (Wes) and some have their own agendas to make a living.In this way, the film is not unlike (and I quote the Dardennes) a fairytale - the boy (hero) on quest in the wide world which various characters and dangers lurking, yet set in this ultra realistic (read social-realist) setting.The style of film-making here is pure and simple in that social-realist style, simply presenting characters who live on the fringe of society; who live in poor social economic conditions or don't have the opportunity of good schooling or the genuine love of a mother or father.
The Dardenne brothers (L'Enfant, Lorna's Silence) once again demonstrate their mastery for crafting character studies around broken souls trying to get by in France, with their newest film, The Kid With A Bike.
Of course the audience knows the revelation he is most likely going to receive.Soon he comes into the care of Samantha (the always great Cecile De France), a hairdresser in the town nearby who runs into him by chance, and this is where the film really starts to succeed.
My heart sank in the moments with his father (played well by Dardennes regular Jeremie Renier), warmed in the few bright spots in his life and when he was in danger I almost drew blood from digging my nails into my palm due to the tension.Along with the emotional journey that the Cyril/Samantha dynamic takes you on, the Dardennes also imbue the film with a dark fairy tale metaphor that I found added a great new layer to Cyril's story.
Cyril spends the film wearing a variety of red tops, clearly representing our Riding Hood lost in the woods, and at a certain point he encounters our version of the Big Bad Wolf; a troubled youth who didn't have the luxury of a Samantha in his life.
Cyril Catoul (Thomas Doret) is living in a state run home and school for children after his single parent father Guy Catoul (Jérémie Renier) abandoned him.
A kind single woman, Samantha, (Cécile De France) takes pity on him and tracks down the bicycle that his father had sold and buys it and returns it to Cyril.
Yet the Dardenne brothers have fashioned an unsentimental, realistic drama, The Kid with a Bike, about an 11 year old boy, Cyril (Thomas Doret), who is fortunately taken in by a guardian, town hairdresser Samantha (Cecile De France), but not without serious setbacks that are understandable given his unstable background.The title evokes thoughts of the famous Italian neo-realist Bicycle Thief, in which a young boy is introduced to life's hard knocks through an imperfect father.
In Kid, the father is a deadbeat deserter whose brief appearances are depressing because it's clear a reconnection with his son is not going to happen.Cyril is running through most of the film, either by bike or foot, a motif signifying his desperate desire for a parent.
Throughout the film you're questioning your reactions to things (boy, that Cyril seems like an awful little monster at first) or asking "What would I do?" Again, the camera-work is immediate and unfettered by stylistic flourishes, putting you right inside the lives of these characters.
They are trapped and miserable in front of life, whether it's the young abandoned kid, or insolvent father or a hairdresser who agrees to foster a ragging child in random act of kindness.
Unable to accept his father's rejection, he constantly ditches school in search of him, but along the way comes across his fairy godmother, Samantha (Cécile de France), who takes an inexplicable shine to the stern-faced 11-year-old.He begins to stay with Samantha on the weekends, but all is still not well for Cyril.
Torn between Samantha, Wes and his own father, who he still longs to please, Cyril has to decide who really has his best interests at heart.This fairytale's 'happy ending' is somewhat bittersweet, but The Kid with a Bike still takes the Dardennes into far more fluffy territory.
After a while, the fairytale form begins to feel like little more than a justification for the formulaic and uninspiring way in which the narrative unfolds.Doret's performance of Cyril strikes the perfect balance between diffidence and angst, and de France is warm and convincing.
The emotional turmoil this child goes through is written relatively simply but the unfathomable depth of the film comes from his absolutely outstanding performance.The staple cinematography of the Dardenne brothers consists largely of shots that take up entire scenes, which along with the natural colour pallet really help bring another huge layer of realism to the film.
In cinematic history, the bicycle has served as the main vehicle to the working class life as in the neo-realistic tearjerker, The Bicycle Thief; in more recent times, the bike literally transports us on a fantasy escape against a moonlit sky, as in E.T. Yes, the bicycle is one amazing and powerful piece of equipment.Which leads us to the foreign film, The Kid with the Bike, a film that doesn't quite amaze its movie-going audience, but does still deliver a powerful message.
One courageous and kind soul who approaches this troubled boy is Samantha ( Cecile de France ), a hairdresser who hopes to help Cyril through this emotional upheaval.
Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have fashioned a simple story about a kid whose only direct link to his missing father is his bike.
This meeting builds rather nicely to some tense moments, but it is midway into the film that the directors begin to lose some focus and gloss over the seriousness of Cyril's actions, diminishing the real life and legal ramifications of this behavior in favor of an ironic twist of fate to be used later in the story.
But when you hear the Dardennes talk about their movies, they insist on their aversion toward clichés or cheap emotions (hear, hear Spielberg): they can use scores, a few familiar set-ups but they'll never indulge to "tricks": their stories are simple in their straightforward and not too fancy directing but through their characters, the brothers drilled soils of human complexity with an equipment as effective as the truth and a certain respect to our intelligence.As the title implies, the film centers on a kid, and so does the first frame: Cyril (Thomas Doret) holds a phone, seeking someone desperately, an unseen adult tries to dissuade him, the case seems hopeless but the kid resists, entrapped in the frame but freed by his certitude.
Telling the rest of the film with as many details would spoil the experience so let's say the story will be about a kid in quest for anything that would make his childhood meaningful, that can cancel out the feeling of sheer abandon, and anyone to provide him, if not love, true guidance.
Cyril's reaction against the thief earns him respect and a nickname that was going to be the original title: pit-bull.A recurring theme in the Dardennes' riveting portrait of the 2000s, we catch "pitbull" at a crossroad of his life, like Renier in "The Promise" where he could either follow his father's footsteps or redeem himself by helping an African migrant.
The Dardenne brothers are Belguims's answer to Ken Loach, and 'The Kid with a Bike' is a beautifully (and painfully) observed little story of a child growing up without the love of his parents.
A young boy tries to find his fatherStarring Thomas Doret and Cecile De FranceWritten and directed by Jeanne-Pierre Dardenne and Luc DardenneThere is something incredibly charming and captivating about some of these French movies with subtitles and this is no different.It's just a great story with no bells and whistles.
Somewhere beside him lurks the angelic figure of Samantha (Cécile De France), a hairdresser, who selflessly devotes herself to bringing Cyril comfort and a new home.The Dardenne brothers neorealist drama, much reminiscent in tone to movies of era gone, is a slight, lingering tale, which imbues itself into the conscious with its humanist tale full of longing, rejection, but ultimately delivers a oft forgotten positive outlook on the human condition.
Desperate for his father's affection, Cyril is given the opportunity of a fresh start when local hairdresser Samantha (the ravenous Cecile De France) who agrees to foster him during the weekends.
A troubled young boy Cyril (Thomas Doret) lives in a Children's Home after his father decided he was no longer able to cope with caring for him.
The woman, a hairdresser called Samantha (Cecile de France) accepts and the boy spends time with her while she attempts to free him from the anger and rage that keeps getting him into trouble.I first heard about this film last May when it won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Maybe I'm missing the point that the film is about the woman's attempts to help the boy redeem himself but I just thought that he was an annoying kid with a sad back story.The father-son relationship did make me feel sorry for the child and it was horrible to see a father treat his son with such disdain.
Considering I didn't like the kid, it was clever of the film to still make me worry about him.I thought that young Thomas Doret's acting was incredible for a boy so young and Cecile de France was infinitely better than in the only other film I've seen her in, the quite frankly very poor Clint Eastwood drama Hereafter.
Educator Leo Buscaglia has said, "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." The empathy in this case is that of Samantha (Cécile De France), a hairdresser in Jean and Luc Dardenne's The Kid with a Bike who connects with young Cyril (Thomas Doret), an angry 11-year-old who has been abandoned by his deadbeat father (Jérémie Renier) and placed in an orphanage.Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and set in Seraing, Belgium, on the surface The Kid with a Bike is a simple story, yet, underneath, it is a complex portrayal of real people struggling to find their place in the world.
Known for their gritty films of social realism that demand much of the viewer ("The Child," "The Son") the Dardenne brothers' latest film is just as tough-minded as the others but it also has humanity and warmth, and its use of music (the adagio from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto), unusual for the Dardennes, makes it a fuller and richer experience.Cyril lives in an orphanage after being deserted by his father, but refuses to believe that his father will not come for him.
Unfortunately, the job leads to unanticipated repercussions.Marked by a stunningly natural performance from first-time actor Thomas Doret who convincingly conveys Cyril's innocence as well as his pain, the Dardenne brothers' refusal to give in to manipulation or sentimentality makes The Kid with a Bike an intense and emotionally gripping experience.
The film grittily follows their principle of consistency, a point- of-view depiction of social margin's dire straits, this time the linchpin is a deserted boy from a foster care house, with a Dardennes' regular Jérémie Renier as the pitiless father, which could be interpreted as a sequel of THE CHILD.
2. Cyril education in the institution where his father left him, to understand why this boy is so much stubborn and has so little skills to think about a fact before acting; for instance, why he doesn't take into account Samantha advice to avoid any relationship with Wes, the drug dealer and thief?
Like a young detective, he methodically tracks him down — visiting the bar and pastry shop his dad took him to, calling a number that is always disconnected, talking his way into his dad's former apartment, where he is sure he will find his bicycle and perhaps Guy (Jeremie Renier), his father.Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2011, "The Kid with a Bike" is another empathetic film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the brothers from Belgium who have strong sympathy for alienated children and young people, and who avoid melodrama and sensation in telling their stories so movingly.
Samantha (Cecile De France), who owns a local beauty shop, tracks down the boy and buys the bike from his father.
The score of this film was used sparingly, close to No Country For Old Men devoid of score throughout, but it worked to get us entrapped in this beautiful and engaging story of a young boy unable to cope with the fact that his father has rejected him and a kind hairdresser taking him in on weekends.
This film is the story of Cyril, a boy abandoned to a foster care system by his father.
The boy gets some fostering support from a local hairdresser who helps him in trying to find his father, stay out of trouble and work out what is next in his life.
It tells the story about a 12-year-old boy named Cyril Coutet who has been sent to a foster home after being left by his father.
Acutely and engagingly directed by Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, this rhythmic fictional tale which is narrated mostly from the protagonist's point of view, draws a moving and heartrending portrayal of a mother-son relationship between a conflicted adolescent boy who has been abandoned by his father and a hairdresser who opens her heart and home to him.
The reason is his father, who has abandoned him and wants nothing more to do with him.But the boy meets this angel-like hairdresser, who feels love when she meets him.
If "The Kid with a Bike" were an English language film, chances are it would be structured so that the title character wouldn't find his father until the end, at which point there would be some kind of emotional climax and narrative resolution.
Even if there is, it will not present itself in a moment of sweeping melodrama.The kid's name is Cyril (Thomas Doret), a troubled eleven-year-old boy in foster care.
He was sure his father would have given it to him.By pure chance, he runs into a hairdresser named Samantha (Cécile de France), who later returns the bike to Cyril.
This time, the story is about a young boy in search for his father, and the hairdresser who takes care of him.
What really stands out in this film is the way the young boy, Cyril, is played by Thomas Doret.
I went to see the Kid with a Bike knowing just the basic story, and that it was a film by the famous Dardenne brothers.
He meets Samantha, a hairdresser who agrees to take him in on weekends while he searches for his dad.The directors do a good job of showing Cyril's disintegration as he realizes his dad wants no part of him, but this all happens within the first half of the film.
Directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, "The Kid With a Bike" stars Thomas Doret as Cyril, a sullen child who has been abandoned by his parents.
After repeatedly running away from his orphanage, Cyril is taken in by Samantha (Cecile De France), an angelic woman in possession of tremendous grace, patience and love.Unlike other films by the Dardenne brothers, "Bike" eschews social realism for austere, almost Bressonian minimalism.
Cyril's father here, for example, is the young father seen in the Dardennes' "L'Enfant", a film about an irresponsible couple who fall into a life of crime, abandoning their newborn kid along the way.
The story is quite simple: a 12-year-old boy abandoned by his father and the kindly woman who randomly meets him and becomes part of his life.
The latest film from The Dardenne Brothers, "The Kid With A Bike" is once again about lower class life in Belgium, this time focusing on the story of Cyril, an eleven-year-old boy living in a state-run facility after being abandoned by his father.
The film was shot in Belgium, in the town of Seraing, where the Dardennes held approximately 100 auditions and settled on an outstanding child actor neophyte, Thomas Doret, who plays the 10 year old protagonist, Cyril.According to Wikipedia, the Dardenne brothers wanted to tell their story much like a fairy tale and chose not to develop many of the adult characters in the film.
Trying to keep Doret on track, Cécile De France gives a great performance as Samantha,whose every attempt to support Cyril France lays bare,as the boy finds his bike..
In a good drama you believe this is the way they should end.If Cyril is the hero, the mystery character of the film is Samantha, the woman who helps him, takes care of him, plays the role of a mother to him.
Eleven-year old Cyril (played by Thomas Doret) has been sent by his father to live foster care.
Cyril Catoul (Thomas Doret) is a young boy who starts the film looking for his bike from his distant father.
The relationship the film tries to build up between Samantha and Cyril made no sense to me because it seemed to come out of no where that this women would do anything to help this child.
Also the fact Cyril cried for his father so much was just annoying because he seemed to act like a baby not listening to what he was told and the boy in this film is old enough to understand what people are saying.