Expectations are understandably high when your last film earns critical raves and a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. If writer-director Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (2009) is an undeniable masterwork, then, rest assured, Rust and Bone is a worthy successor. Marion Cotillard is Stephanie, a killer whale trainer in the south of France who's hospitalized after an accident, and Ali (Mattias Schoenaerts) is the boxer who helps her recover. But ultimately, in true movie fashion, they help each other, and fall in love along the way. In that sense, there is nothing new here. It's the execution that is fresh and bold.
So much of Audiard's latest work - of all his work - is worth mention that it becomes difficult to say specifically what makes it so good. With Cotillard heading your cast you know the acting is going to be unbeatable, and Schoenaerts proves every bit her equal with his quiet layered performance. Stephane Fontaine's cinematography infuses the film with warm Mediterranean light, the occasional exposure overflowing with flares of sun. Much of the shots are handheld but just subtly enough to let the frame breathe. The visual effects, crucial to telling part of this story, never overpower: they appropriately deceive and remain in the background. The picture editing and sound editing (yes, I'm mentioning sound editing) build elegant, strategically-placed sequences that serve both narrative pacing and, often more importantly, emotional punctuation.
I could go on. And on. But I think it's with this specific kind of carefully constructed sequence that Audiard has made his mark and where he succeeds best. Often he'll pull everything into extreme slow motion. The camera, no longer loose, now moves in smooth controlled shots. Sound ebbs or fades into silence to be replaced by Alexandre Desplat's elegant score, or a mix of score, source music and ambient sound. Audiard shifts from a hard, verité style into poetic abstraction. Things are no longer themselves; they symbolize. Animals become totems; characters become types. The everyday begins to resonate. And that's what we want from a film. We want to believe that stuff matters. That life matters. It can exist on another plane.
Testament to his talent, Audiard always reconciles this duality elegantly. Who else could one moment use a Katy Perry song for both real and ironic detail, and then shortly thereafter use it again, but this time with full-throttle sincerity? He can pull it off, and his accomplishment - his career - demands and deserves our attention. Rust and Bone is a rich experience that invites multiple viewings. It gets under your skin.
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