Another excellent, timely film from the Dardenne Brothers, Young Ahmed

I've been a huge fan of the films of the Dardenne Brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc), even noting in an earlier post that the two of them may become the first filmmakers to win a Nobel Prize in literature; their films chronicle the lives of young people living in the margins in the industrial territories of Belgium and northern France - a world that had been completely unexamined in film and literature, and a suitable ground from which to build an entire opus and career, much like, say, Faulkner's Yoknapatapha or Erdrich's North Dakota (she's another potential Nobel winner). The Dardennes' latest film - which wend straight to Criterion, which is great - Young Ahmed (2019) - is a bit of a break for them: same territory and milieu but focused on a teenager who has recently become absorbed in a extremely conservative Muslim mosque, whose young and charismatic leader has seemingly pushed this vulnerable young man to criminal extremes. Ahmed - I won't give away key plot points - eventually is sent to a reform prison for young men, where he is helped to a degree by a caseworker - but where will still see his extremism and dangerous behavior. Will he mature in some way and recognize the extremes of his youth and how he had been used by the mosque leader? Or is he a ticking time bomb, so to speak, destined eventually to cause destruction and death? The ending is left open and ambiguous, which may frustrate some viewers, though I think it's typical of the Dardennes' work, leaving us to think about the discuss the film and come to our own conclusions. It's also notable, from the title alone, the this film may be the first in a series on the life of Ahmed, something like Truffault's and Ray's early films.