Page - 48 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

48 | Stefanie Knauss www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 45–66 them,9 in the films of the Dardennes gender stereotypes are not even allowed to form, as both men and women, as protagonists and in supporting roles, are developed as multi-dimensional, complex characters with a capacity for change, expressing strength and weakness, flawed and exemplary behavior, vulnerability and violence, openness to others and self-absorption. Roger in La promesse (The Promise, BE/FR/LU/TN 1996), for example, is a criminal ruthlessly exploiting the despair and dependence of illegal migrants for his own profit. Without any attention to his son Igor’s needs – endangering, for example, Igor’s apprenticeship as a car mechanic and thus a future beyond criminality – he in- volves him in his illegal activities, forces him to adopt equally ruthless attitudes toward others and beats Igor brutally when he tries to help a migrant woman, Assita, whose husband had an accident and was left to die by Roger. Yet Roger also has a softer side, especially with regard to his son, with whom he tries to bond in various ways and for whom he cares as well as he can. Although Roger is, in relationship to his son and the migrants who depend on him, in a position of power, which he maintains through physical violence and domination, it be- comes clear how fragile this power is when his son, with Assita’s help, ties him up so that Assita can make her way to safety. In chains and without his glasses, Roger appears naked and helpless, his dominant masculinity stripped down to utter dependency on the assistance of a child and a woman – help which he is denied by them, as he had denied it them and others before. While the films emphasize that individuals are not defined by their gender, they also acknowledge the impact of the social context of the patriarchal sys- tem, for example in the exploration of the particular vulnerability of Assita, an African migrant woman in The Promise (1996). She is subjected to gendered violence when Roger’s assistant assaults her sexually, from which she cannot seek protection for as an illegal immigrant she is dependent on Roger, and be- cause her husband died, she is even more isolated. Although twice exposed under these conditions, Assita is represented as a strong, resourceful woman who actively embraces her identity as mother and wife and uses her agency to protect herself and her child. Here and in other cases, the films maintain the balance between, on the one hand, the affirmation of their characters’ agency and freedom in how they define their identity and determine their life circum- stances and, on the other hand, acknowledgement of the social conditions that expose them to violence or discrimination. In addition to its development through the plot, this balance is further un- derlined through visual means. For example, characters are often represented as being a part of a larger situation in street shots that contextualize them,10 9 Cf. Knauss 2014. 10 David Walsh sees this differently: he criticizes the lack of context that “diverts attention from the structures responsible for human suffering and creates the impression, inadvertently or not, that the