Peau d'homme coeur de bête

"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-)

If ever there was a movie teaching people how NOT to act - it is this one. Horribly over-acted, Bernard Blancan (Coco) is particularly awful! The films saving grace is Cathy Hinderchied (Aurelie - the little girl) who is absoltely beautiful and actually acts her part better than all of the so-called accomplished older actors. The part where Coco thumps the gradmother should be shocking. Instead I burst out laughing - thanks completely to Bernard Blancan hilarious facial expression. The way he shows anger is to open his eyes wide. he uses the same facial expression for happiness, confusion, etc. etc.

Pascal Cervo as Alex is very under-used as he is a very promising actor who simply isn't given the chance to really shine...

Overall, a huge disappointment!!

while watching this film i often found myself repeating the title over and over again like some sort of mantra that would help me truly figure out its shadowed and concealed plot. after viewing i was left feeling perplexed and unrequited but intrigued but the goings on of a family clearly plagued by inherent violence and unusual treatment of their "fellow" human beings. i put the term fellow in quotation marks because of the unique perspective taken on human nature as a theme of the film as understood from the title. the line between human and animal is blurred and the matter of where our humanness divides from our animalness is never fully resolved.

intriguing film.

the only other two reviews of this film on here at this time make it out to be awful. i don't think it was - i thought it was interesting. it isn't a film i can say that i "like" - it is very difficult to like this sort of horrifying film.. but i thought the characters were interesting and well-portrayed.. the young girls were very good. and i liked the ending very much. i guess the reason i did not hate this film was the performances and the fact that i was filled with a tension throughout the film - bad films do not generally fill me with anything but annoyance. and you can feel the tension from the beginning of this film, way before anything happens to confirm our suspicions.

it is not an easy ride, but i think it is worth it.

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.