De rouille et d'os (2012)
Directed by Jacques Audiard

Film Review

A startlingly stylish re-interpretation of film noir, Un prophète was the most highly regarded French film of 2009.  The winner of nine Césars and the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, this was a hard act to follow, but director Jacques Audiard delivered a comparable cinematic tour de force with his next film, in an altogether different genre.  After a run of distinctive modern thrillers, Audiard embraces the classic melodrama for the first time and breathes new life into a kind of film that is all too easily derided for its reliance on plot contrivances and shameless manipulation of an audience's emotions.  It was Douglas Sirk who brought respectability to the classic Hollywood melodrama in its heyday in the 1950s.  Now, with De rouille et d'os, Jacques Audiard pulls off the same trick for a more sophisticated 2012 cinema audience.

De rouille et d'os was inspired by a collection of short stories entitled Rust and Bone by the Canadian author Craig Davidson, published in 2005.  Its central story strand involves an unlikely love affair that develops between a wannabe boxer and a crippled young woman as they struggle to overcome the problems that fate has thrown in their path.  There are some superficial similarities with Olivier Nakache's hit comedy Intouchables (2011) - both films involve a strong-willed character coming to terms with a severe disability - but Audiard's approach is strikingly different.  Adopting a raw naturalistic style that is reminiscent of the work of the Dardennes brothers, Audiard gives his film a fragmented look that emphasises the fractured natures of the two main protagonists, who begin as broken individuals (one is crippled emotionally, the other is crippled physically)  but who attain wholeness through the love that they share together.

This is a film about the need to hit back and go on fighting when fate delivers you a near-knock-out blow.  Ali is a born no-hoper, but he is determined to make something of his life.  Stéphanie appears to have lost everything when she wakes up and finds that her two legs have been amputated after a terrible accident, but she too has the inner resources not to be beaten by adversity.  It is possible that Ali and Stéphanie may have won their private battles separately, but that would have made a far less interesting film.  It is by forming an intense emotional bond that Ali and Stéphanie are able to reach out and give each other the support they need to overcome their personal crises.

The film could so easily have drowned in a sickly sea of sour sentimentality.  The plot is pure soap, driven by the kind of contrivances that on paper sound laughably trite.  What redeems the film is the sheer ruthlessness with which Audiard undercuts the melodrama, so that the emotions bubble up gradually from beneath the surface rather than being constantly flung into our faces, as lesser filmmakers were wont to do in previous decades.  There is a sharply expressionistic feel to Audiard's style of filmmaking, the brutally stark, sometimes conflicting images suggesting the inner feelings of the protagonists, feelings that they appear incapable of expressing themselves.  By rigorously underplaying the emotions, the actors succeed in rendering their characters more credible and more sympathetic than they might have been, and the end result is devastatingly effective.

Just as Ali and Stéphanie somehow manage to see into each other's soul without externally communicating what they feel, so we, the audience, develop an instinctive understanding of them both.  This is only possible because the characters are played by two extremely talented actors.  Matthias Schoenaerts (recently revealed in Michael R. Roskam's Bullhead, 2011) and Marion Cotillard (a major star after her Oscar winning portrayal of Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahan's La Môme, 2007) could not be more different.  Schoenaerts has an almost feral physicality, the kind of actor you'd expect to see playing heavies in tough gangster films.  By contrast, Cotillard is female grace and sensitivity personified.  Perfect for their respective roles, their union has a definite Beauty and the Beast ring to it (similar to the romance between a partially deaf woman and a thuggish jailbird in Audiard's earlier film Sur mes lèvres, 2001).  Ali and Stéphanie could hardly be less well-suited for one another, and yet, as we know, true love operates not at the surface level, but deep within us, and it is this strange inner magnetism which draws the two chalk and cheese characters to one another and makes a mockery of our shallow misconceptions.

One of the reasons why the film works so well is that Schoenaerts and Cotillard both keep their emotional cards very close to their chests.  When Ali offers to make love to Stéphanie after her accident, we cannot be sure what his motive is: is it because he genuinely finds her attractive (even without her legs), a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to help her feel better about herself, or just morbid curiosity?   There is no amorous feeling evident when the couple make love for the first time - it is a purely mechanical act, nothing more than a kind of mutual therapy.  Love comes later, when the two people begin to see a little deeper inside the other and make a stronger connection.  This is the point at which the film becomes particularly moving, the cold physicality of the first half giving way to something far more spiritual and poetic.

Whilst Schoenaerts and Cotillard are undoubtedly the film's main asset, it should also be noted for its supporting contributions - Bouli Lanners, Céline Sallette, Corinne Masiero and Armand Verdure all bring as much realism to their portrayals as the two leads.  The special effects also deserve praise.  Do we need to see Stéphanie's stumps after her accident?  Probably not, but the fact that her disability is so convincingly shown to us drives home the sheer awfulness of her predicament and perhaps makes it easier for us to understand why she allows Ali into her life (and also why Ali is so moved to help her).

De rouille et d'os is Jacques Audiard's most humane and lyrical film to date, less stylistically brilliant than Un prophète, less perfectly constructed than De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005), but a major achievement nonetheless.   Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine beautifully captures the fluctuating moods of the protagonists as they undergo their emotional odyssey, their feelings subtly underscored by Alexandre Desplat's music.  The story may be pure melodrama, but such is the sensitivity and artistic flair with which Audiard tackles it that it can hardly fail to overwhelm anyone who watches it.  This is assuredly one of cinema's most intensely involving tributes to the resilience of the human spirit and the redeeming power of love, a life-affirming masterpiece that will haunt you and move you long after you have seen it.

Film Synopsis

Homeless and penniless, Ali has no other choice but to turn to his sister for help.  Accompanied by his five-year-old son Sam, Ali makes his way to his sister's home in Antibes, confident that she will give him a place to stay whilst he tries to get back on his feet.  Ali soon finds work as a bouncer, but he dreams of making a name for himself as a boxer.   After a fight in a nightclub, Ali meets Stéphanie for the first time.  He takes her home and gives her his telephone number.  But why should she take any interest in him?  He is poor and shy.  She is beautiful and confident, a trainer of killer whales at a marine life park.  Only a tragedy could bring the two of them together.  But a tragedy is what happens.  When they next meet, Ali finds that Stéphanie is confined to a wheelchair.  She has lost her legs and most of her illusions.  Ali is moved to lend her his support, through compassion, not pity.  With Ali's help, Stéphanie will regain her zest for life...