Page - 51 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

Visionary Critique | 51www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 45–66 her fate, but instead takes the situation into her own hands, knocks the driver out with a stone and runs away through the forest, determined, as she explains to her unborn – imaginary – child, to make a better life for them both. It is noticeable that the films are firmly inserted into a framework in which heterosexuality normatively structures sexual, familial and social relationships.12 While this system is not openly questioned through the inclusion of LGBTQI identities or relationships, the Dardennes subtly challenge it by shifting the fo- cus from heterosexual, intimate relationships to broader networks of relation- ships that underline their social dimension and the dynamic interaction between different forms of relationship. But even more importantly, they challenge the naturalization of motherhood and fatherhood implied in heteronormativity by showing the insufficiency and failure of biological family relationships and of- fering alternative models. Biological mothers and fathers, such as Roger in The Promise (1996), Cyril’s father in Le gamin au vélo (The Kid with a Bike, FR/BE/IT 2011), Bruno in L’enfant (The Child, BE/FR 2005), or Rosetta’s mother in Roset- ta (1999), are represented as irresponsible and exploitative, and as neglecting, leaving or even selling their children. In a clear critique of essentialist notions of the innate mothering qualities of women and conservative notions of fam- ily values as they are promoted, for example, by Catholic teachings on gender and gender roles,13 biological parenthood is shown to be insufficient to establish caring, supportive relationships between adults and children in a family commu- nity that equally protects and empowers. Such communities are instead created through non-biological relationships of care and parenting, most explicitly in The Kid with a Bike (2011). Not based on biological instincts, but rather on the ethical (and emotional) claim on Samantha that Cyril makes by holding on to her in a situation of need, her commitment to him is absolute, but not blind. When he asks her to live with her permanently after he has stabbed her with a pair of scissors and has hit a man and a child with a baseball bat, she accepts without hesitation or fuss, but then also takes him to the police to take responsibility for his actions, a process of which, because of one of the typical elliptic cuts of the Dardennes, we see only the result, when Cyril signs a contract with the man he hurt and apologizes in front of Samantha and a mediator. The family created by Samantha and Cyril does not allow for authoritarian dominance – when her boyfriend attempts such behavior, she leaves him – but is instead marked by openness, care and empowerment: not by coincidence is the boy most himself when he can ride around the streets on his bike, unrestrained and free, knowing that he will be able to return to the safety of Samantha’s home. 12 Cf. Warner 1993. 13 See Hinze 2009 for a detailed critique.