Rust and Bone/De Rouille et d'Os (2012) - Cotillard gives another awe-inspiring performance

♥♥♥♥

 

A sensual, strong poster for Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone

 

A crude single father arrives to a coastal city in France with his son and gets a job as a bouncer in a nightclub, where he meets a beautiful woman in distress, who later loses both of her legs in an Orca accident.

Co-writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet/Un Prophète (2009)) continues his style of telling different stories about underclass people we otherwise rarely meet on the big screen, and he once again strikes with a very corporeal tale with a couple of scenes of ugly violence. SPOILER - One of them involves the father and his son, and I found it very hard not to lose all sympathy for the gorilla-like man (played intensely by Matthias Schoenaerts (The Danish Girl (2015))) here. Moreover, Schoenaerts yells the little, crying boy in the head, and I couldn't help but wonder how (or if) they shot that in an ethically defensible way. (I have since read that Audiard deemed this the film's hardest scene to shoot and that the boy knew he would be yelled at but still started crying for real, which is what is now in the film.)

Schoenaerts has a primitive intensity, but it is Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose/La Môme (2007)) who is the center of the film, and she is absolutely stunning, completely melted together with her character and deeply moving in certain scenes, SPOILER especially those in which she overcomes her handicap.

Audiard co-wrote Rust and Bone with Thomas Bidegain (Dheepan (2015)), based on a same-titled 2005 short story by Craig Davidson (The Fighter (2008)). It is a raw film presented without much sugar; it goes for the jugular and should especially be seen for Cotillard's hypnotizing performance.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 15.4 €, equal to approximately 20 mil. $

Box office: 25.7 mil. $

= Big flop

[Rust and Bone premiered May 17 (Cannes) and runs 123 minutes. Cotillard is an animal activist and fiercely against marine parks. Still she spend a week preparing for her role in a marine park, whereas Schoenaerts practised MMA and gained weight. The film came together as a co-production of no less than 17 companies and institutions. Filming took place in 8 weeks in France and Belgium from October - November 2011. The film opened #56 in 2 theaters to a 27k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 168 theaters and grossed 2 mil. $ (7.8 % of the total gross), the film's second biggest market. Its biggest market by far was its native France with 14.5 mil. $ (56.4 %). The 3rd biggest was Germany with 1.5 mil. $ (5.8 %). The film lost the Palm d'Or to Michael Haneke's Amour. It was nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 9 Césars (France's Oscar, winning 4) and numerous other awards. Roger Ebert added the film to his Great Films list. Rust and Bone is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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