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An alienated man returns to Paris in heavy rainfall in an attempt to mend family affairs in the wake of a suicide and substantial monetary damage. He discovers that human hearts, including his own, are not as repairable as he would prefer. Director Claire Denis displays a mastery of imagery, detail, tension and emotion in a dark story that goes back and forth in time and patiently reveals secrets. The introverted characters of her story attempt to react with confidence and courage to the bleak circumstances, malevolent figures, and fears that hem them in, yet their trust and hope hang on a thread. The film is enthralling, dark and brooding.

I think the title describes almost all of the characters. The editing and the story are hard to follow. All that puts off the senses and no matter how hard you look, there are no heroes, on the contrary.

In this French film noir, a ship captain leaves his post to get revenge on behalf of his sister whose family has faced recent tragedies.

This film is occasionally confusing but always intriguing thanks to the directing style of Claire Denis. At first, it is difficult to distinguish who's who partly because two characters look alike. There are also times it is hard to understand the motives and actions of the main character.

Still, the intrigue seems to work especially with a plot twist followed by one of those endings that is shocking because one would not have expected the film to end at that point. This is one of the few films that gets away with this device. - dbamateurcritic.

Hard hitting, beautiful, feminist and intelligent, the film is not an easy watch. The story is not told in a straightforward way and things do not go the way we expect. Tough and torrid, the tale unfolds in many different ways before us and we struggle, as does the main protagonist, to deal with what turns out to be an almost labyrinthine problem - even though we are only really talking about a couple of guys, their women and some girls. So beautifully is this shot that there were occasions where I seemed to miss a plot point, so in awe of the way some 'ordinary' scene was portrayed, and I assume this was intentional, one of the various means by which we become side-tracked here until faced with the awful and final denouement.

I realised after watching Bastards that I am a Claire Denis fan. I appreciate her entire body of work and I knew early on she was one of my favourite directors. Each film she has made has moved me and stayed with me.

I like her way of filming a story. She never spells the story out for us, none of the characters come out and tell us how they are feeling; instead we have to find our own way into their worlds with visual clues. It is for us to see and follow, to be active in our observations. Somehow Claire Denis manages to reveal things to us in a soft, unassuming way, which then affects us when we read the intense and often deeply buried emotion that spills out.

For the making of Bastards, Claire Denis has returned to her team of long-time collaborators, including cinematographer Agnès Godard, indie band Tindersticks for their atmospheric soundtrack, and actors like Vincent Lindon, Gregoire Colin and Michel Subor.

With Bastards, Chiara Mastroianni (Beloved) joins this entourage, as does Lola Créton (Goodbye First Love, Something in the Air). While Mastroianni gives her best performance on screen, Créton reveals a lot of herself without ever actually saying more than a few words.

Viewers that have not seen any of her previous films may find it harder to appreciate the qualities and intensity of the movie. We are quickly drowning in a story where nearly every character is not likable - here the title Bastards feels very apt.

It's a dark and raw film. It has the shadowy mystery of The Intruder, the emotional disturbance of Trouble Every Day, and the intimacy of Vendredi Soir. It's a sordid and brutal revenge drama, but it's also a true modern film noir. Enigmatic and detailed, with dark textures. Sharing with us the fragile and troubled human condition, the characters' bodies are explored in close up, the texture of the skin, the marks and blemishes staring back at us.

But, ultimately, what Denis nails every time is the mood. The unseen, unheard mood. The impression we are left with, the vibrations of human energy. This is the real mark of a Claire Denis film.