De rouille et d’os (Rust and Bone)

I recently won a movie pass from one of the best video stores we have in the city. I’m subscribed to their newsletter, and it’s pretty easy to enter your name in the contests and win them. The only problem is that if your name is selected, you must be one of the first 20 or the first 10 people to go get the pass at their store, first-come, first-served. Their store is not near my house by any means, so a few weeks ago, when I won a pass to see the French movie Rust and Bone, I had to take extraordinary measures to go get the tickets, which basically means I escaped work one Friday evening, called my husband to tell him there would be no dinner for at least the next several hours, waited in the wind and the cold for a bus and went to get the tickets at the store. There was a lineup when I got there. I had phoned earlier, just before leaving work, and they told me that “only 5 left!” and to “hurry up!” I feared and already hated every other winner who may get the passes before me. Thankfully, there were enough left when I got there, and I got mine. I was so happy, and I invited my husband on a date to see the film.

Rust and Bone is a love story,  a redemption story about overcoming tragedy and survival. It starts with a loser: his name is Ali, and he is making his way to his sister’s home to live with her. He has a young son, 5 or 6 years old, and has separated from his child’s mother. He is starting a new life in a different town. His sister is generous; she takes them both in and becomes a mother to the child. But they are not well-off by any means: she is a cashier at a supermarket, and her husband drives a truck to make deliveries. Ali is certainly clueless about his son: he doesn’t know him, doesn’t know if he used to go to school before they left or knows what he likes. But he tries to make a life for both of them.

Ali takes care of his body, which is the one thing he knows how to do, so he runs, goes to the gym and eventually finds a job as a security guard/bouncer at a club. He has a chance encounter with a beautiful woman, Stéphanie, who is involved in a fight at the club. We gather that Stéphanie is unhappy in her current relationship. She works as a whale trainer at a water park. Later, she suffers a horrible accident where she loses her legs. And then, the real story of the movie starts.

Stéphanie goes through a long depression, but one day, she calls Ali, and they reconnect. They live in the south of France, so they go to the beach. One of Ali’s qualities is that he doesn’t make a big deal of Stéphanie having lost her legs; he doesn’t pity her and simply accepts her reality. In one beautiful scene, Stéphanie finally decides she wants to go for a swim. Ali helps her get in the water; she doesn’t have a swimsuit, but that doesn’t stop her.

Marion Cotillard is probably one of the most beautiful women in cinema today, and she is as sublime as Stéphanie: she is subtly defiant, a fighter, but never aggressive. Before her accident, Stéphanie was used to being beautiful and admired. She was the type of person who goes through life knowing the effect they have on other people. It’s beautiful to watch. Ali is also a fighter, literally. He likes to watch ultimate fighting and eventually starts fighting himself. It’s gruesome to watch. But he is good and starts making money through the fights.

Like many movies about boxers and fighters, we see how sad their life can be. We see him destroy his body for the sake of a few euros and make many mistakes along the way, especially with his son and his family. But fighting is the one thing he knows how to do, which he is good at. And in the end, it’s his physical brutality that saves his son’s life and his own in every sense.

In between, Ali and Stéphanie come together romantically, but their relationship is presented in the least romantic and sentimental way possible. In an interview Marion Cotillard did recently, she spoke of how difficult sex scenes are always for her. The exception, she said, were the sex scenes in this movie, which she cherished for the sake of her character, who has gone through so much pain and trauma. Those scenes, especially the later ones, are unforgettable and truly special. This is brave filmmaking, unsentimental and honest. I’m so happy I took my husband on a date to see this movie; he loved the cinematography. And I did, too.