"Le jeune Ahmed" is the Dardenne brothers' return to the cinematic approach they knew and excelled at, and which made so many of their classic predecessors: capturing the bodies of non-professional actors, the details of their movements to create their characters, the state of the characters in the face of adversity and how they reacted to it. Transcend and liberate.
"Le jeune Ahmed" is a very shocking work -- and it's heart-wrenching at times. The Dardenne brothers are very good at showing things that are realism, pulling the camera so close that it almost makes the audience feel claustrophobic. Indeed, the Dardenne brothers played to their strengths—with this close-knit approach to photographing the impending crisis of these believable characters. The director's specialty is realism, and it plays particularly well here, and the scenes in the movie are very impactful. Le jeune Ahmed's 1 hour 24 minutes is so tight that the Dardenne brothers didn't waste a minute. And the last third of the movie still leaves a suspense at the end, which makes the audience feel a little vague and unsatisfied. It turned out that Ahmed was just pretending to realize the mistake, when in fact he was still planning to kill. But overall, the Dardenne brothers tell a chilling tale of how a radical teen progresses toward a murderer, and it must be a timely wake-up call to reflect on the chaotic times in which he lives.
