Sunday, April 7, 2013

Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os) (2012)

Director: Jacques Audiard. Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure. 120 min. Rated R. France/Belgium. Drama.

Another foreign treasure, lost in the crowd of great 2012 movies. A whale-trainer loses both legs in a freak accident, and forms a relationship with a low-life drifter. This setting clears the relationship of any sort of romanticism, giving it a down-to-earth, realistic, even animalistic nature, which is fortified by the film's depressing orange/yellow cinematography. But when two people interact, can it be summarized to such hardcore realism? After all, physical disability is not about a fractured body - it's about a fractured spirit. Mend the fracture, and observe the miracles. Watch this with a group; it's a guaranteed discussion-breeder.

PS #1: And check out the DVD's 2-minute special feature on how they made Cotillard's amputated legs look so real.

PS #2: I can't resist. Ebert did such a great job.

Mo says:

2 comments:

  1. What a cool new comer actor!He was terribly good!you know he was chosen after 200 candidate had been rejected for this role already.reminding me Ryan Gosling in "Drive" or Tom Hardy in Warrior ..Interesting point that I read : in original novel the hero was a man not a woman and filmmaker did intentionally such a change to avoid repatriation similar previous work so far... this disaster was too much for a woman to deal with ...to overcome it . Imagine the role for a male character ? it would be much more easier to believe,so I think director just used this switch of role to highlight the power of love.....agree with you that it's a very good staff for movie discussion...very beautiful!
    It's funny that in most sexy and nude scenes in movies mostly actress is not comfortable enough but people enjoy... now in this movie actress was satisfied with the scene but audience was NOT !it was really depressant

    Trivia :"Marion Cotillard claimed that she hates filming sex scenes, which for her are usually the worst part of being an actress, but for the first time she enjoyed her sex scenes in a movie with Rust and Bone. She said: "I am shaking; I feel very bad and I want to cry most of the time because I hate it so much, but here it was totally different. I was so involved with my character that I was happy she would enjoy something like that. It's a movie about love, about flesh, about rust and bone and heart and sex, so without the sex scenes the movie would have missed something".

    * the clip of that special effect you mentioned

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuweyvIFMNc

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  2. Glad you enjoyed it. When I watched the film, it was late at night, and I was planing on only watching half of it and going to bed. But then, the movie was showing such honesty, I found myself deeply absorbed into it, and by the time I knew it, the movie was over. Films rarely have such power, that you don't even look at your watch for two hours.

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