L'Enfant

I spent a typical Friday night debating with myself whether to play with razor blades, eat some paracetamol or watch a film. In the end I decided to watch L'Enfant. Which was a good decision as it goes. L'Enfant is good. Very good in fact, especially after a spat of films that, as Monty might put it, set in... like a vulgar little tumour. L'Enfant falls into the category of cheeky 90-minuter...

(ok, so it's 100 minutes but fuck accuracy, hey, la la la,  look at me, I'm a journalist, I'm the king of the fucking world; one day I'll write about the time I went to the Frontline Club in London to see John Fisher Burns speak, the west's longest standing journalist in Iraq, he works for the Washington Post, but I need to work up a fucking head of steam for that).

Back to the point, so after the recent epics that are "Lust, Caution" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford" (the former, meh, the latter yeh), this film is vivacious with performances that had a palpable and infectious energy. I was even reminded at times of Goddard's A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), such was Jeremie Renier's performance as Bruno, albeit L'Enfant is nowhere near as cool. It's timing was impeccable throughout, though,  with everything moving along at a brisk pace without feeling rushed, it even ended at precisely the right moment, which is more than can be said of some of the longer films that I've watched of late.

You should see this film - it's the best thing to come out of Belgium since C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous (Man Bites Dog).