Tori and Lokita - Review Thread

Though they were once models of consistency it’s starting to look like the Dardenne Brothers may have been missing a couple of steps lately. After the 2014 success of Two Days, One Night they made two straight movies that were not really considered up to their standards in The Unknown Girl and Young Ahmed. The latter film is perhaps part of the problem in that it was interested in looking at the life of a young Muslim child who was falling into Islamic extremism, which was perhaps a subject that these aging white Belgians were not the best positioned to explore. It does, however, makes sense that the two would be interested in looking at communities of color; the two have long been humanists interested in looking at the poor, downtrodden, and disaffected and to some extent you can’t ignore people of color if you’re going to do that in this modern world. With their latest film Tori and Lokita they manage to walk that line a bit more steadily. The film looks at a pair of young African immigrants: one of about sixteen the other about ten or eleven. They aren’t really siblings but pose as such and work various odd jobs in order to make ends meet. That bond is rather pure and touching but little by little you realize exactly what harsh realities Lokita has to deal with in trying to help keep Tori safe and becomes more deeply involved in crime as the movie goes forward. I don’t know that this movie has anything particularly novel or new to say about immigration or poverty, but it does give a fairly believable and at times pretty cutting slice of life. I wouldn’t call if a full return to form for the auteurs by any means but it’s a respectable attempt.