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"It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it, that
it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are, and that we may
even trust it to contain eventually by implication that last word which we expect from the
Day of Judgment” (Arendt 103). No directors in the film world personify the truth of
storytelling in film like Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The way that they reveal meaning
without defining it is by telling a simple story, and letting it organically unveil it’s sincerity
through the course of the film.
These two brothers, who emerged in the film world by filming documentaries, fill their
films with the familiarity of commonplace circumstances and issues that bombard people
in their every day lives. After years of filming the real emotions and reactions of others in
documentaries, they have stayed true to the idea that realness and authenticity are the
marrow to each story they tell, and they must tell it well to be effective storytellers and
successful filmmakers. Essentially, the mark of successful filmmaking, in the case of the
Dardenne brothers, does the following: it employs their hometown, as the set for each of
their films, in order to be a symbol and physical representation of the issues they choose to
display, it uses the transformative power of love as an underlying theme, and dresses the
film with realism to produce an authentic account of the lives of their characters.
In producing and filming the nine feature films that the brothers have made, one thing has
stayed a constant: they were all filmed in the same location. The location is the small
Belgian town of Seraing, which is in Liege, a small state within Wallonia, the
French-speaking region of Belgium. About his hometown, Jean-Pierre Dardenne has said,
““Seeing these people who were alone in the streets where we grew up made us want to
tell their stories. It’s as if you had a friend who you used to see in the prime of life and
resplendently healthy and you meet him 15 years later and he looks completely disheveled.
You say to yourself: I want to tell the story of what happened” (Coyle "For the Dardenne
brothers, home is where the inspiration is"). Most of the Dardennes’ films encompass a
story of a working-class character in a predicament that pits financial circumstances
against ethics; because of this common theme, they choose to invigorate the economy in
