Prisma #57

Jeunes mères by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne opens with a medium shot of a teenage girl standing at a bus stop talking on the phone. From the conversation, we can gather that she’s waiting for someone who hasn’t shown up. The camera can barely follow her as she paces nervously back and forth. With a sudden movement to the left, her round belly comes into view for the first time. She turns out to be one of the young mothers from the title of the film.

While the Dardenne brothers typically assume a transparent attitude with the camera functioning as an instrument connecting viewer and character, the opening scene of Jeunes mères seems to be toying with viewers and their expectations. The frame guides and misleads viewers with the aim of creating a surprise effect. What’s behind this apparently manipulative opening shot?

The first images of films are relentless. They trap characters and follow them through the entirety of the film. Luc Dardenne writes in his notes that he wants to help his characters escape from the weight of that first image as well as from stereotypes and clichés that inevitably impose themselves on them. By delaying the revelation of Jessica’s pregnancy, the mise-en-scène shields her from the loaded idea of the teenage mother. In addition to her pregnant belly, the frame also keeps prejudices and projections out of the picture, allowing her to remain just a teenager for a little longer, searching for the mother she never knew. After all, it’s this search, rather than her pregnancy, that preoccupies her. Taking her view of the world as its starting point, the camera follows her obsession and, like Jessica, adopts an indifferent attitude towards her unborn child.

Just like the brothers’ other films, Jeunes mères is a balancing act between the concrete and the abstract. The cautious mise-en-scène creates breathing room for the characters and prevents the film’s “subject,” which is already given away in the title, from suffocating them like a fire blanket.