Is there a particular reason why the main character in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's La Promesse is named Igor? Is Igor a common name for Belgian men? Or is this another one of those on-the-nose bits of symbolism that the brothers are so fond of? After all, he is his father's assistant in his dastardly doings, smuggling and exploiting illegal immigrants. It's funny, though, because I see more of the mystic and the numinous in La Promesse than I did in The Kid with a Bike (2011), a film explicitly modeled after fairy tales. There's much talk of spirits and magic, mostly from the African immigrants who carry out mystic rituals. But what impressed me the most about La Promesse was the relationship between Igor and his father: there's genuine tension, fear, and love between the two of them. It made them fell human, even in the depths of their inhumanity.
7/10
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