Der Geschmack von Rost und Knochen

RUST and BONE immediately drew me in with its arresting cinematography, immediate realism, and so on. The plot is an interesting mix of qualities: compelling but unfocused, surprising but often dissatisfying. As patchy as it is, this story certainly takes you to some interesting places. Several reviewers have noted that we don't know enough about the characters to really empathize with them. I see what they mean, but I think the lack of information is intentional, and I'm not so sure that it would be better if we did know more--not because they're such terrible people, but because, you know, does it really matter in the end? The mere fact that reviewers--even those who give it only 1-5 stars--have found so much to analyze here and have interpreted RUST and BONE in so many different ways says something for the substance of this film.

Anyhoo, Ali and Stephanie are both quite real, and RUST and BONE is an interesting mass character study of people at their bests and worsts, who, though it's nothing dramatic, DO experience some change and transformation at the end, discovering what's most important to them. Stepanie's injury and Ali's love coupled with abuse and neglect of his son are vital ingredients, done with sober conviction.

Those with a low tolerance for raw violence and/or melancholy should probably skip RUST and BONE. Otherwise, it's an interesting change of pace that stays with you for awhile.

a splendid movie. not ,only, for acting, image or genius of director but for its force. for the art to have roots in every day reality and in ordinary life of viewer. impressive, powerful, honest at whole. salted, cruel, delicate, speech about vulnerability and need of the other as existence support, a great opportunity to remind the amazing artistic possibilities of Marion Cotillard, it is a necessary film. for understand yourself, for see a magnificent manner to use silence as the most powerful speech, for explore levels of fragility and the subtle science to be part from the other. beautiful images, superb performance. and something else. the deep roots. because it is one of rare films who becomes part of yourself.

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.

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.

This Audiard film is one that grows on you. For quite some time into the film it seems both the film and its main characters aimlessly sit in their cocoon without breaking out. One feels some very vague potential in people but somehow their very lives seem the greatest impediments to its blossoming. One wonders what the film is about and where it is going. Like its characters, it feels like a bunch of loose ends aimlessly hanging about. But I must say that at the end of the movie it has grown on you: suddenly, as the story progresses, the film hatches, the characters break out of their cocoon and in retrospect one feels one has been witness to the improbable -and yet realistic- birth of an unusual but deep love story between two common people. The story has a hidden intensity of screenplay which is intensely performed by Schoenaerts and Cotillard. It creeps beneath your skin. If you like Audiard's way of developing gradual character drama with an intensity that seems to be implicit, buried beneath trailer-trash but still strongly present, you'll like this film. It's a story of how one can find anew a purpose in life when one feels like wasted trash. I watched this film in a full theatre of some 300 people. At the end most everybody sat silent for some minutes. It seems the film had touched something inside quite some of us there. Film as it should be.