Coeur animal (2009)
Directed by Séverine Cornamusaz

Film Review

The savage beauty of the unspoiled Swiss countryside provides a suitably austere backdrop for this brutal drama depicting the fragile and destructive relationship of an emotionally crippled farmer and the wife he abuses, not by wanton malice, but by a tragic inability to express feelings of warmth and tenderness.   Coeur animal is an impressive debut feature from the Swiss filmmaker Séverine Cornamusaz, who takes Noëlle Revaz's novel Rapport aux bêtes and transforms it into an intense character study that also serves as a solemn meditation on mankind's struggle to achieve mastery over his bestial nature.  Whilst the plot offers few, if any, surprises, Cornamusaz's treatment of it is subtle and original, and her work is one of extraordinary humanity, marred only slightly by a denouement that is just a little muted and predictable.

The more punctilious critics will have no difficulty pointing out the shortcomings in the screenwriting and Cornamusaz's tendency to overstate matters (lingering on scenes that might have had more dramatic impact if they had been truncated slightly), but it is much harder to fault the contributions from the three superlative leads - Olivier Rabourdin (Des hommes et des dieux), Camille Japy (Nos vies heureuses) and Antonio Buíl.  Each actor has a naturally restrained acting style and unromantic rugged quality that is perfectly in tune with the granite bleakness of the film's subject and Cornamusaz's distinctive near-documentary style of filmmaking.  Whilst the three main characters all find it hard to show their feelings, and even harder to talk to one another, such is the authenticity of the performances that by the end of the film we cannot help feeling that we know them intimately and share something of their inner torment.

Olivier Rabourdin's Paul is not the most prepossessing of individuals; indeed he looks like a throwback to the dawn of man.  Uncommunicative, moody, prone to fits of suspicion and jealousy, he does nothing to endear himself to anyone.  And yet, grotesque and troll-like as he often appears, we are compelled to identify with him and hope that he can somehow find a way to overcome his crippling inability to relate to others.  Who can fail to be moved by the understated but remarkably powerful sequence in which Paul watches helplessly as his wife is taken away from him by helicopter?  The look of incomprehension and betrayal that washes over his cracked face is agonising to watch.  When Paul's process of redemption begins, via an unlikely moment of shared understanding with his hired hand, it hits us like a dazzling shaft of sunlight breaking through a sky lead-lined with storm clouds - a glimmer of hope that the brutish farmer will mend his ways and be governed by a heart that is more human than animal.

Film Synopsis

In a remote region of rural Switzerland, a farmer and his wife eke out a harsh existence, appearing to live in a century far removed from our own.  Paul is incapable of showing any kindness towards his wife Rosine, and is unconcerned when she starts to suffer from severe stomach pains.  He treats her worse than his animals, a slave willing to attend to his every need and every command.  One day, he hires a Spanish migrant worker, Eusebio, to take on the more demanding jobs on his farm.  He treats his new farmhand no better than his wife and becomes suspicious when Rosine begins showing him some kindness.  Convinced that his wife has started an affair with Eusebio, Paul beats her in a wild frenzy.  A short while later, he sees her being flown by helicopter to the nearest hospital.  Feeling betrayed, he turns his anger towards Eusebio but has a change of heart when he discovers that his worker has marital problems of his own...