De rouille et d’os
Director: Jacques Audiard
Writer: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain
Based on: Craig Davidson‘s story
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Vedure, Céline Sallette, Bouli Lanners
Plot:
Ali (Matthais Schoenaerts) was just recently put in charge of his son Sam (Armand Vedure). Completely overwhelmed by the situation and having no money at all, he leaves his home and moves in with his sister Anna (Corinne Masiero). There he finds a new job as a bouncer, through which he meets Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard) who declines his advances. While Ali moves from job to job, the only constant in his life his passion for boxing, Stéphanie’s life is shattered when she has an accident at the aqua park and loses both her legs. In her desperation, she calls Ali again and the two of them become friends.
Rust and Bone is a beautiful film, both to look at and to experience. It hits all the right notes, and both Ali and Stéphanie are extraordinary, intriguing characters, played to perfection by Schoenaerts and Cotillard.
With all the praise this movie got, I had pretty hight expectations, especially since I also liked Audiard’s previous film A Prophet. And it was extremely satisfying to have my expectations fulfilled completely.
The story doesn’t really follow traditional narrative structures, but it keeps you engaged and interested the entire time. Even though it’s sometimes extremely harsh. That’s because Ali and Stéphanie are great characters and the kind of characters we don’t get to see very often. You want to know what happens to them, you want them to succeed and you want them to be happy.
Both Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts are absolutely wonderful in their roles. Really amazing. They make their characters and their emotions absolutely real. And you want to stick with them.
The cinematography is beautiful. The soundtrack is amazing. And Audiard takes all those perfect pieces and puts them togehter in an excellent whole.
Summarising: Definitely recommended, if not to say a must-see.
kalafudra's Stuff 
not very fluffy, but it sounds somehow beautiful
unrelated stuff:
1) you have to watch “hannah arendt” the movie for me :)
2)have you heard that there is an european initiative to ban abortion (thpugh they never say “ban” they say stuff like “influence legislation to value life”)? And I’m quite sure they will get their initiative.
ad 1) The Hannah Arendt movie is a definite must-see.
ad 2) that shit is disgusting. I hadn’t heard about it before. Thanks for pointing it out. I had really hoped that Europeans were a bit smarter about those things.
[Edited your comment only to tweet the link. But I don’t think keeping silent about this crap does any good either.]
Yes, and a dangerous movement, methinks. Especially because they have learned not to use words like “ban”, “crime”, etc.
PS: I’m undecided, but more on the “don’t share” side when it comes to evil propaganda. Because you always spread the information you mean to critizise. On the other hand it is good to be informed, too. … Hm, tricky question.
Yes, it is. But I think that it’s illusory to think that the information won’t get out and I rather have people speaking out against shit like that right from the start.
If it wasn’t a big deal, one could ignore it. But this has gotten too big to ignore, I think.
Can you edit my posting and delete the link and name, please?
… I wanted to tell you about it but I of course don’t want to “advertise” the page.