The tangy, rust-like taste of blood and the rough rattling of broken bones may be indicative of injury and incapacitation, but underneath the damage both also signal survival. Unemployed single father Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts, Bullhead) and orca trainer Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard, The Dark Knight Rises) experience the pain of physical hurt, but acknowledge the endurance their wounds symbolise, embracing their emotional and bodily scars in the face of the alternative.
Ali struggles to make ends meet, and even more so to care for his son (Armand Verdure, in his first film role), relying upon the hospitality and help of his sister (Corinne Masiero, Louise Wimmer) to get by. Stéphanie treads water in an unhappy relationship, living for the thrill of her job and the applause of the audience as she commands her whales for their daily performance.
Against a deliberately-paced background of marine park accidents and brutal bare-knuckle fist-fights, Rust and Bone (De rouille et d’os) not only charts the intersection of its dual protagonists, but the clarity their companionship brings, with their convergence coinciding with undeniable low points in their respective lives. Individual miseries become shared opportunities as love blossoms against the odds; yet, differences in physicality, maturity, sexuality and responsibility exist in their similar, symmetrical predicaments, variances that writer/director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) is keen to highlight.
More than a trace of melodrama is present in the filmmaker’s moving but meandering narrative, adapted with Thomas Bidegain (Where Do We Go Now?) from Craig Davidson’s collection of short stories of the same name; however the heightened content is crafted with assurance, empathy, restraint and resonance. With his trademark visual flourishes evident in strikingly contrasting vignettes – including stripped-back intimate interactions that seethe with ugliness and emptiness, and the expressive treatment of tragedies that define the character’s journeys – Audiard deftly darts between the exaggerated and the delicate, with much of the film’s strengths seen in the obvious yet earned dichotomy.
Amidst such thematically challenging material and aesthetically arresting execution, the calibre of the haunting, harrowing performances cannot be faulted. Both leads epitomise the tenacity and fragility of those who are bruised and battered but never beaten. Without the fearlessness of Cotillard’s brave, CGI-assisted effort, or the brutishness of Schoenaerts’ internalised display, the redemption, recovery and romance of Rust and Bone could have languished in pity and indulgence; with them, bittersweet beauty emerges from the ashes of devastation.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Rust and Bone (De rouille et d’os)
Director: Jacques Audiard
France, 2012, 120 min
In cinemas 28 March
Distributor: Hopscotch
Rated MA
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