Page - 42 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

42 | Walter Lesch www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 33–44 transcendence, in going beyond what is evident and looking behind the film im- ages (“au dos de nos images”), even those shot for the best films,24 for the pure image as a trace of that which remains invisible. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have the extraordinary gift of being able to bring us closer to the emergence of ethics without preaching a set of rules. If the vertigo of responsibility cannot be completely avoided in a world of fragility and suffering, the brothers nevertheless offer a glimpse of hope in the encoun- ter with redeeming otherness that opens the self to the joy of life.25 This is the artistic gift of humanism without illusions and of realism without cynicism. If there is any message in the Dardenne universe, it is more moral than political.26 This is the difference between their reference to Levinas and the way Jean-Luc Godard uses the philosopher in order to make a political statement. In God- ard’s film Notre musique (Our Music, FR/CH 2004), Levinas is directly quoted in order to condemn violence and injustice.27 One of his texts is being read by the Israeli journalist Judith Lerner as she visits Sarajevo and the Mostar bridge. We see her with a copy of the paperback edition of Levinas’s book Entre nous, a collection of essays dealing with the ethical priority of the other.28 Unlike in Godard’s film, in which Levinas is quoted directly verbally and visually, his pres- ence in the films of the Dardennes’ cannot be pinpointed to a particular scene. Instead, his influence is expressed subtly, yet insistently, in the humanist atti- tude that pervades the brothers’ whole œuvre. In the films by the Dardennes, the philosophical inspiration creates an entanglement of ethics and aesthetics because the visual language becomes an experimental expression of the moral values that are at stake. There is no need to quote philosophical books because realistic humanism is an attitude that can convince without big theories. BIBLIOGRAPHY Atterton, Peter/Calarco, Matthew, 2010, Editors’ Introduction. The Third Wave of Levinas Scholar- ship, in: Atterton, Peter/Calarco, Matthew (eds.), Radicalizing Levinas, Albany: State University of New York Press, ix–xvii. Aubenas, Jacqueline, 2008, La tentation du meurtre, in: Aubenas, Jacqueline (ed.), Jean Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Brussels: Éditions Luc Pire, 283–285. Bradatan, Costica/Ungureanu, Camil (eds.), 2014, Religion in Contemporary European Cinema. The Postsecular Constellation, New York/Abingdon: Routledge. 24 The Dardenne brothers clearly belong to a secular culture. It is therefore correct not to study them in a “postsecular perspective”, which implies a quest for alternative spiritual experiences. See the contri- butions in Bradatan/Ungureanu 2014. 25 Dardenne 2012, 189–190. 26 Luc Dardenne interviewed by De Jonghe/Soudan 2012. 27 Atterton/Calarco 2010, ix. 28 Levinas 1993.