Metal y hueso

Jacques Audiard is the maker of the sensational, Oscar-nominated movie Un Prophète. Matthias Schoenaerts is the lead actor in the sensational, Oscar-nominated movie Bullhead. Together, they now have made De rouille et d'os. Is it sensational? Well, um, yes. Will it be nominated for an Oscar? Time will tell!

Like those other two movies, De rouille et d'os is about strong characters, fighting their way through life against all odds. One of those characters is played by Schoenaerts, the Flemish actor who is on the verge of his breakthrough in international cinema. At least, that's what everyone in Cannes was talking about. Next year's American remake of the Flemish blockbuster Loft might well be his ticket to Hollywood.

In De rouille et d'os, Schoenaerts basically plays the same sort of character as he did in Bullhead: lots of muscles, little brainpower. In this movie, he succeeds in embarrassing, hurting or insulting everyone he cares about: his child, his sister and his girlfriend. He seems incapable of showing the least bit of empathy. His rude and insensitive way of treating other people would almost be funny, if it weren't for the sometimes dramatic consequences.

The story is about the relationship between this emotionally handicapped man and a physically handicapped woman. Although they have almost opposite characters, they find each other in their mutual experience of being different from the rest. His lack of sympathy and understanding is almost an advantage for her. She lost her legs, but he doesn't ask her how she copes or if she wants a shoulder to cry on. No, he asks her if she wants to take a dive in the ocean with him. 'Do you realize what you're saying?', she replies. He answers by carrying her in his arms to the sea and letting her discover that she can swim by using only her arms.

Audiard knows how to let his two lead actors excel. Schoenaerts is completely believable as a primitive macho who means well but screws everything up nevertheless. And Marion Cotillard is cast perfectly as a strong-willed woman who refuses to be confined to a wheelchair. I was amazed by her physical appearance as an amputee - you'd swear that she had her legs cut off in order to be able to make this movie. The visual effects are awesome.

But apart from the acting achievements, Audiard also has some nice visual treats. Most of the time, the movie focuses on the actors, but now and then aesthetics take over. The scene with Cotillard in an orca show is an example of superb directing: the huge animals are filmed in such a way, that it becomes clear something terrible is about to happen. De rouille et d'os shows superior craftsmanship on all levels.

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.

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

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.

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.