By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Armand Verdure | Bouli Lanners | Corrine Masiero | Marion Cotillard | Matthias Schoenaerts
Original language title: De rouille et d'os
Country: belgium, france
Year: 2012
Running time: 120
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2053425/
Bruce says: “I was a huge fan of Jacques Audiard’s THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED (2005) and READ MY LIPS (2001). His most acclaimed film A PROPHET (2009) did not score as high with me as with other viewers as I felt it glamorized criminal behavior more than it condemned the institutions that surround it. Happily RUST AND BONE has the appeal of his earlier films. Audiard’s currency is the turbulent life of the underclasses; his characters are unlike those from any other filmmaker. Often violent or extreme, they often have balancing characteristics that make them one-of-a-kind.
“Alain van Versch (Matthias Schoenaerts) has come to Antibes to be with his young daughter who is in the care of his sister and brother-in-law. ‘Aren’t you going to kiss your brother?’ is met with a blank stare. It is abundantly clear that he is not welcome in their house but he is family and they allow him to stay. Alain finds work in the field of security, first as a bouncer at a disco then as a guard for a supermarket chain. He has been a professional boxer. At the disco Alain meets Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard); at the supermarket he meets Martial (Bouli Lanners) who arranges pick-up kick boxing matches on the back streets of Antibes.
“The night he meets Stéphanie he offers her a ride home thinking he is going to get lucky. Stéphanie resists his advances and does not want him to accompany her up to her apartment; Alain persists under the pretext he has to use the bathroom but realizes he is mistaken when Stéphanie’s boyfriend greets them. Alain gives her his number and leaves.
“Stéphanie is an orca whale trainer at the local Sea World and soon is involved in a training mishap that leaves her without both legs. Something about that brief encounter with Stéphanie clicks with Alain so when he hears about the accident on the news he goes to the hospital to see her. A relationship slowly begins. He becomes, with Stéphanie, everything that he is not elsewhere in his life. He is kind, considerate, affectionate and reliable. Stéphanie is perplexed by his attentiveness for sex does not seem to be part of the equation. That quickly changes when she asks him to experiment, just to see if she can function sexually without her legs.
“Martial takes on Alain as a kick-boxing contestant and he begins to win his matches earning more money than he makes on his regular job. The matches are brutal, leaving Alain battered and bruised. When Martial gets arrested, Stéphanie decides to take over handling the matches. She is as tough as the street folks, not a surprising turn for a former orca whale handler.
“Audiard claims to be influenced ‘by films that are almost like fairytales such as NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.’ He handles the killer whale attack beautifully, perhaps as Charles Laughton would have done, but overdoes the violence in the streetfighting scenes. What a surprise to have the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ suddenly appear mid-film.
“The marvelous thing about RUST AND BONE is how matter-of-factly Stéphanie’s disability is treated. It does not become a presence that overshadows the people who have to learn to deal with it. Typical of an Audiard character, Alain is a man who is tough, crude and extraordinarily tender. Matthias Schoenaerts is perfectly cast although I hear that his character in RUST AND BONE is not all that different from his role in BULLHEAD, an Oscar-nominated foreign language film from last year. Schoenaerts bulked up for this role; in person he is not particularly imposing, a far cry from a streetwise kick-boxer. Marion Cotillard’s beautiful performance punctuates that her award winning Piaf was no fluke. Her Stéphanie is complex and believable. 4.5 cats
(RUST AND BONE screened at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.)”
Scot says: “I loved this movie much more now than I even expected to when the credits rolled. It’s a really rich, smart narrative that surprises, delights, and provokes. See it in the theater if it’s distributed near you. Matthias Schoenaerts will certainly get a Best Actor nom vote from me this year.”
Thom says: “I saw this with CHLOTRUDIS clubbers Michael, Bruce, Scott, Scot, & Beth. After THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED, READ MY LIPS, & A PROPHET director Audiard has received tons of plaudits and awards and this good film will only add to his oeuvre. I find it quite interesting that pal Bruce loves Audiard but is least pleased with A PROPHET, my favorite. This film is about a rough-and-tumble sort of guy (a breathtaking Schoenaerts, who I was previously unfamiliar with) who fights bare-knuckled until opponents pass out. He leaves with his young son from Belgium to move in with his burnt-out sister in Antibes. He becomes interested in a whale trainer (Oscar-winning Cotillard, who’s forever surprising as an actress) who becomes disfigured from a horrible accident with one of her charges. The advancing relationship between the two central figures is the crux of the film and it’s remarkably touching. Nonetheless, as distracting as Schoenaerts appeal is, his character is much too brutish for him to win me over even though his awkward love for his son and his careful tenderness toward the trainer does win him some real respect. 4 cats”