Peau d'homme coeur de bête

This is an exceptional first film on the ways violence can poison a family. The film pulls no punches and Angel wrist great performances from her cast. Especially the young girls. The film plays-out like a thriller and finishes like a Grim fairy-tale. I look forward to her future releases.

The last review pretty much nailed it on the head. I saw this movie at a film festival two years ago where it was much ballyhooed because it had won some award at some European festival in the months before. But I was stunned at how confused and just generally crappy this movie was. Its violent without reason or preview, the characters really don't make much sense and that title--oh boy! I believe its supposed to be released around the States this summer, but I'd recommend just cruising the freeway looking for free car accidents before you blow your cash on this one.

I had read imdb users' comment before watching the film. I was very surprised. Though it is not the best film I ever watched, this film is very good. It is NOT a violent film - have a look at David Lynch's Lost Highway or Blue Velvet! It is not a thriller either. It tells the story of a lower class family in southern France. An uncle comes back after fifteen years. He pretends he was in the army but one guesses he was in prison - was he? It seems this guy is not clean and may get dangerous. Indeed, except killing a woman by accident, nothing happens but the tension is very high and you are expecting all the time the worst will happen : I was stuck to my chair.

"Skin of Man, Heart of Beast" is a subtitled French flick which tells of a man who wanders back into the lives of his mother and brothers after a long absence he unconvincingly alleges to have spent in the Foreign Legion. A laconic and distant person, the film never really develops the character as it clumsily shows him becoming an increasingly aberrant "head case". A unfortunate attempt at dark psychodrama with low-end production value, this painfully tedious flick spends most of its time with the mundane activities of the family members making its 90%-filler/10%-thriller screenplay too little payoff for too much effort. Passable for all but the most diehard foreign film freaks into psychodramas in spite of above average critical reviews. (B-)

"Peau d'Homme Coeur de Bête" is a fairy tale in the classical sense. This isn't a Disney movie and we get the feeling that the children might be devoured at any moment. This tension runs throughout. Does this movie depict violence towards children? Not exactly. But the threat is real and ever-present. It saturates everything.

All of the men in this movie are struggling with their emotions and anger. After having left various male organizations (such as the military, the pseudo-military fraternity of cops and perhaps even prison) we see that these men don't know how to vent or focus their own aggression. It spills out. They lash out at those around them. When the men gather together this emotion tumbles from riot to celebration seemingly at random.

This is a dark portrait of "the heart of a beast" that beats within all men. In the end, however, there is a small sliver of hope. Perhaps it is possible, somehow, to vent this aggression in a non-destructive way.