Rust and Bone

I watched this film at the Canes Film Festival, audience expectation was high the huge Palais auditorium completely filled. Jacques Audiard is my favourite director, as with Tahir Rahim in A Prophet and Roman Duris in The Beat that my heart skipped, Audiard managed to get an astounding performance from his male lead Schoenaerts, performed as a brutal man lacking the capability to show warmth or love to his young son and the women that cross his path, his performance as a bouncer come fist fighter for money is always believable though completely unsympathetic. You wish him to succeed though you find it hard to like him so often does his character disappoint, seemingly incapable of love and sensitivity, his straight forward requests for sex come out as comic rather than charming, but his open down-to-earth approach and honesty, often gets him what he desires. Meeting Cotillard he is met and challenged by a very strong woman, damaged she needs to find herself again, he could possibly help, at least initially physically rather than emotionally. As their characters interact throughout the film I was unsure as too who would change who, fascinating highly watchable characters struggle to prevail against bad luck and to pull themselves out of the mire of despair and poverty, my kind of film. Again a remarkable film by a master film maker, completely at ease with breaking the conventions of traditional romance.

Apart from the great story the movie is telling (combining two stories, male and female and their complications), this has remarkable special effects. Of course it also had a good budget to play with (for European standards that is). If they do an US remake, you can bet they'll cut off some of the edges (and some of the erotic/nude content too).

But until then and if you speak french or don't mind reading subtitles, this movie has to suffice. And it is very well acted. It's about loss, hope, friendship, love and many more things. It is about life, things we take for granted (very well shown in several scenes), passion, but also about broken people and how they try to get back on their feet (no pun intended). A great drama that I can only recommend

What a remarkable performance! Marion Cotillard as an actress, as an artist goes as far here as very few actresses have gone before - Total and utter truth no matter how wrenching - Maria Falconetti in The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Anna Magnani in Bellissima and very few others, now, for me, Marion Cotillard in Rust And Bone belongs right up there among the sublime. Here I should be commenting on the film and my comment is all about her because Rust And Bone is her, Marion Cotillard. Her co-star, totally new to me, Matthias Schoenaerts, is superb as the handsome, unwitting agent provocateur. Not to be missed.

Rarely does a film use its source material (in this case, two powerfully devastating short stories by Craig Davidson) and transform it into something new and equally formidable. That, however, is precisely what Jacques Audiard has done with "Rust and Bone," a moving and raw look at how two rather ordinary people respond to extraordinary circumstances. Stephanie, a whale trainer played by the brilliant Marion Cotillard, must face life as a double amputee after a freak accident. Alain—played by the painfully handsome Matthias Schoenaerts—is a single father who must juggle his need to support his son while eking out a living for himself as a security guard. Stephanie's and Alain's lives intersect in unexpected but perfectly plausible ways, and their story generates equal parts despair and inspiration. This is an emotionally difficult but ultimately life- affirming film. And I sincerely hope that it helps catapult Schoenaerts to fame in the US. He embodies an atypical combination of ruggedness and heartfelt emotion rarely seen on film.

Put in charge of his young son, Alain van Versch (Matthias Schoenaerts) leaves Belgium for Antibes to live with his sister and her husband as a family. He's a low-rent street fighter. Alain bonds with killer whale trainer Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard). It grows deeper after Stephanie suffers a horrible accident.

I don't find myself that involved in Alain's story. His story is pitiless and relentless. Marion Cotillard is much more compelling. The movie drags every time she's off the screen. I wish this is a movie concentrating on Stéphanie's story. I find Cotillard and her character utterly fascinating.