There are 6 clips in Part 18, three are from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s film The Kid with a Bike (2011) and the other three are the directors talking about the making of that film. Although I remember someone said musicians making commentary tracks for their own music is the sign of death in music industry, I think these commentary videos are helpful for students to know how these films are made.

The first thing I noticed is, comparing the videos of the film and the commentary, the set looks nothing alike. It is hard to believe that the place Dardenne brothers stand in was where they shot the film. Especially in the last two clips, the real restaurant is largely different from the place Cyril’s father works in; the only way to tell is from the red wall of its interior. In the actual film, when Cyril and his father walk out of the kitchen, there is a jump cut; so I thought there might be two different sets that were not connected. But in the commentary, the Dardenne brothers showed us that there is a corridor linking them, and that makes me even more confused about the jump cut. It just seems unnatural and unnecessary.

Through the directors’ commentary, we can see there is a lot of planning involved in each scene, especially the last clip. The brothers mentioned that “every time the kid excuses his father, he is facing the camera.” I did not notice that until they said so, now that I know I think that is done to make the audience feel sympathetic about Cyril. That is the decoupage we have been discussing in the course, or part of the process; it is the staging of actors and the camera work together. Also when they say they transformed the restaurant to a “football supporter’s restaurant”, that may not even be in the script, but it is the directors’ job to think of it and make it happen.

Here is something the Dardenne brothers did not mention in their commentary, these scenes are shot with handheld camera. I found the trailer online, and after watching it, I think the whole film was shot that way. Handheld camera does make the film look more realistic, and immersive as well. Like the directors said, they wanted to give the audience “the impression of being INSIDE with our characters.” And also we can see that when the boy and his father are in the restaurant, they are both staged to move around a lot, and the camera is following them. From this visible dynamic flow of the scene, we can sort of get the hint that the father does not intend to settle down with his son, he’d rather try to get rid of him as soon as possible, and the kid will always be chasing someone who does not want him around. I think that is a perfect example to illustrate the relationship between decoupage and the deeper implication in the image. And that is kind of similar with Antonioni’s approach of discussing the philosophy between the scene and the space it was shot in.