The Cape Breton Island Film Series wraps up their Winter schedule this Thursday at 7pm with The Kid With A Bike.
“The Kid With A Bike will be our 256th movie,” says Parker Donham, the Film Series organizer. “It’s a perfect film series movie, by two Belgian brothers who are admired by film buffs but wouldn’t be known to one in 50 North Americans. The Dardenne Brothers make very naturalistic movies—by which I mean, movies that feel real. They’re about ordinary people, working stiffs. Without the film series, there is no way on God’s green Earth Cape Bretoners would be able to see such a movie on the big screen. And I guarantee you, when people come out of the theatre Thursday night, they will be exclaiming about what a beautiful film it was, and how happy they are to have seen it. It’s very gratifying, and it’s the main reason I keep showing good independent movies.”
According to the Film Series’ website:
THE KID WITH A BIKE won the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Festival. It centers on 11-year-old Cyril, whose wayward father has left him at an orphanage with what turns out to be a false promise to return for him in a few weeks.
Desperate to reconnect with his dad, Cyril continually runs away from the boys’ home. One of these escapes leads to a chance encounter with Samantha, a single hairdresser who shows him a level of respect that is rare between adults and strange children.
THE KID WITH A BIKE is a classic sleeper. We fought to get it on our schedule last December–it was the last booking we confirmed–and reviews have since exploded with critical praise. In the March 10 New Yorker, Anthony Lane wrote:
“In the opening shot, the son calls his father’s number and finds it cut off. He clings to the phone, as if that might forge a connection, then makes a furious break for freedom, sprinting through the grounds of the home, scaling the boundary fence, and clinging to it as his caretakers pull him back.
The last and most important cling happens comes as Cyril, having finally escaped, ducks into a medical center, crashes into a woman in the waiting room, and grabs at her, for want of anything better. Again, people try to drag him off, but the woman, far from panicking, says simply, ‘You can hold me, but not so tight.’
…The real reason to see THE KID WITH A BIKE is that it offers something changelessly rare and difficult: a credible portrait of goodness.”
Don’t miss your only chance to see it on the big screen.
phochacarma says
I like it; short of love.