Even great masters stick to what they know. Jacques Audiard’s films concern individuals at one remove from society triumphing over adversity and living on their own terms. This was true of Tahar Rahim’s converted Muslim inmate in A Prophet, Mathieu Kassovitz’s myth-weaving narcissist in A Self-Made Hero and Emmanuelle Devos’ subservient deaf woman turned criminal in Read My Lips.
In Audiard’s latest – the beautiful, biting and odd Rust & Bone – the superficial obstacle is physical impairment. Ultimately, however, it’s a story about overcoming emotional repression and allowing oneself to be vulnerable, in order to connect.
Marion Cotillard is arrogant, unpredictable Stephanie. When she goes to a nightclub scantily clad to tease men, she ends up with a bloody nose. But this is merely a tame foreshadowing of the horrific fate facing Stephanie when she attempts to control a beast far fiercer than man: an orca whale. Her injuries leave her isolated and suicidally depressed, until bare-knuckle fighter Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) unceremoniously forces her back into the world, igniting a fiery bond.
It’s a storyline that, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, could have become bogged down by symbolism and allegory. Thanks to the incredible performances and Audiard’s Midas touch, Rust & Bone instead becomes both beautiful and admirably cryptic.
Neither Stephanie nor Ali ever proves truly likeable; indeed Ali’s callousness and violent treatment of his young son seems Neanderthal. However Schoenaerts brings a magnetic quality to the role, to say nothing of the seductive arrogance of a jungle cat. Stephanie isn’t a warm character either. However, Cotillard softens her bravado with vulnerability. Their relationship is odd but believable as they fascinate and challenge one another.
There is beauty beyond the performances, too. Awash with saturated colours, striking silhouettes and abstract, dream-like underwater sequences, Rust & Bone is loaded with elegance and passion. A fine, thought-provoking piece of cimematicart...