Page - 40 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

40 | Walter Lesch www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 33–44 someone who can appease the violent forces that are about to destroy him.18 By chance, the boy meets Samantha, a local hairdresser, who becomes a wit- ness to Cyril’s despair and decides to support the boy by offering him recogni- tion, love and consolation. She succeeds in finding Cyril’s bike, which his father had sold to make money, and brings it back to the boy, who has been placed in a children’s home and now gets permission to visit Samantha at weekends. This is their first film shot during the summer months, and so The Kid with a Bike (2011) is different from other Dardenne films because of its brighter and more colour- ful mood. The filmmakers even introduce music (Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5), which had been banned from their soundtrack for a long time. Samantha’s character remains enigmatic if we want to know exactly why she is willing to be there for Cyril.19 According to the standards of common moral- ity and rational calculation, nothing obliges her to accept such an important change in her life. But she simply does so, and gives a chance to the improbable appearance of human goodness that can help overcome fear and violence. She even sacrifices her relationship with her boyfriend, who does not appreciate the intrusion of the boy into the life of the couple. She also makes an effort to convince Cyril’s father to act in a more responsible way, but has to accept that his refusal is definite. The story of Cyril and Samantha is one example among many of an expe- rience of goodness threatened constantly by the lack of compassion for oth- ers. Cyril is seriously tempted to find a substitute for his missing father in the criminal gang led by a dealer who uses him for an attack on a newsagent. The robbery fails when the newsagent’s son Martin appears and is also assaulted by Cyril. Martin is unable to accept Cyril’s apology in a victim-offender mediation and later finds an opportunity for revenge. In a dangerous pursuit, he hits Cyril with a stone, leaving him unconscious. When Martin’s father joins the scene, he thinks that his son has killed Cyril and is ready to hide the crime to protect his son. To their surprise, however, Cyril gets back on his feet and leaves. In The Kid with a Bike (2011), the integrity of human life is at stake because of a high level of aggression and hatred that does not provide suitable conditions for human flourishing and forgiveness. The film shows people who risk killing others intentionally or accidentally and who themselves can become victims of the uncontrollable behaviour of others. In this constant struggle, people are alone in their vulnerability. According to Luc Dardenne, the solitude of the hu- 18 Dardenne 2012, 7–9. 19 See Pippin 2015 for an in-depth discussion of the difficulty of understanding what the Dardennes’ char- acters do: try to imagine what the characters will do after a Dardenne film ends. We are not able to do so because objectively the characters themselves do not have any certainty about what could happen next. “This is not a sign of some flaw or absence in their character, some lack of sufficiently stable dispositions to project into the future. Or it is that, but not merely that. It is at bottom an objective problem” (Pippin 2015, 783).