Breaking through angry silence

DVD/Video: The Son (Artificial Eye, 12, £22.99/£15.99)

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's latest film is a typically powerful study in repressed emotions and unhealed wounds, with Olivier Gourmet giving a remarkable performance as the carpenter whose life has been destroyed by tragedy.

Now alone, he teaches miscreant teenagers carpentry until the arrival of an enigmatic new boy, Morgan Marinne, precipitates a crisis. Gourmet starts to tail Marinne: he believes Marinne holds the key to his unhappiness.

It can't be easy to convey anger and isolation in characters who speak little and express less, but these two manage, and the result is startling.

No extras.