Rust & Bone (Dir. Jacques Audiard) 2012

Sebastian Black

Rust & Bone (Dir. Jacques Audiard) 2012

Rust & Bone is a French Belgium romantic drama with the themes of mobility, family, & money & sexuality. It was directed & written by Jacques Audiard. The film's original title is De Rouille Et D'os. Rust & Bone has 32 awards e.g. the Lumiere Award & 71 nominations e.g. the Golden Globe. 

Ali, a single dad travels to his sister's house with his son for support. He becomes a bouncer & comes across Stephanie who is injured from a fight. He escorts her home & theygo different ways. The next time they meet things are different. Stephanie has lost her legs because of a killer whale. Ali helps Stephanie through a journey of self discovery & confidence. 

The character Ali starts with nothing. We follow his struggles of being a single dad trying to feed his son & doing everything he can for his son. Despite Ali hitting Sam or treating him like he's in the way we as the audience believe that Ali is a good father & all he wants is the best for him. For example, Ali shouts at Sam for sitting with the puppies in the little hut & he forces him under the hose to clean Sam however we know that this is for a good reason. Yes they are poor however that's not excuse to not care about hygiene. Ali has self respect. I feel like Ali cares about hygiene quite often, he doesn't care what circumstances you are in, he expects hygiene to be executed well. Ali is honest, when Stephanie asks if he can smell anything bad, he agrees that he does. He is not afraid of hurting her feelings. In my opinion I believe that Ali knows that it is Stephanie who smells however he hasn't said anything because it her own problem to solve. All Ali can do is suggest ideas to Stephanie.

Stephanie's character on the other hand started out as the opposite to Ali. She has a job, she seems to be in a somewhat stable relationship, she goes clubbing, she has everything Ali doesn't have until she loses her legs in an accident. Stephanie loses the confidence to go outside, to swim, to go clubbing & to sleep with men. Ali helps Stephanie out of the shell she is in. He takes her out swimming & he doesn't care what other people think. We know that Stephanie is insecure because whenever Ali is with a female, from Stephanie's pont of view, she is always looking at the lower half of the body. This relates to when she told Ali that she seduces men by dancing. She wants to seduce Ali but she can't because she can't dance without legs. When Stephanie goes to watch the fights, she admires the men from far. We see shots of her just looking out the window. This tells us that she misses men in general, she may not be attracted to the ones she is looking at but the thoughts are still there. 

Together Ali & Stephanie grow as characters. They are polar opposites however their acceptance of each other allows them to fall in love. In my opinion there are only two occasions where Ali shows true emotions. When he is with Stephanie, we can see the love. The other time was when Sam was drowning underneath the ice & Ali did not care about himself at this point, he was punching the ice until it broke, it didn't matter if it hurt him because he loves his son.  

Sound was really effective in this film. The sound was absent in some parts of the film which put us in the character's shoes. For example when Stephanie fell into the water where the killer whale attacked her, the sound was absent & it effectively captivated the audience into watching.