Young Ahmed (Blu-Ray)

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne won the Best Director
award at the Cannes Film Festival for this
brave new work, another intimate portrayal, in
furious motion, of a protagonist in crisis.
The filmmakers’ radical empathy alights on
a Muslim teenager (extraordinary first-time
actor Idir Ben Addi) in a small Belgian town
who has been radicalized by his Imam despite
the desperate protestations of his single mother
(Claire Bodson), and who winds up hatching a
murderous plot targeting his beloved teacher
(Myriem Akheddiou). Taking a serious view of
a difficult issue—the effect of fanaticism on the
body and soul—the Dardennes here remind
viewers why they continue to be at the center of
21st-century cinema. – New York Film Festival