Rust and Bone (De Rouille et d'Os, 2012)

 

 Wikipedia

Jacques Audiard's new film Rust and Bone tells the beautiful, harsh, and unpredictable story of the relationship between Stéphanie, an Orca whale trainer who loses both her legs in an accident, and Ali, an estranged single father and a former boxer down on his luck. It seems to me that one cannot praise enough the stunning and yet discreet direction of Jacques Audiard, and the perceptiveness of the script he wrote together with Thomas Bidegain; and neither can the naturalness and magnitude of the performances offered by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts be emphasised enough. Simply put, the film displays the kind of quality one rarely comes across in any field of art.

Rust and Bone is a case where the artistic form serves its content with integrity and precision. And in the course of doing so, it stands gender stereotypes and conventional accounts of disability on their heads, while it also puts forward questions of social responsibility and personal accountability. It is a film about the long and hard process of standing up while all hope is lost, about becoming not only strong enough, but vulnerable enough as well, so as to be capable of loving, caring, and sharing.