Bastards (2013)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Memorable, crazy movie

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

"Les Salauds" is one of those slow moving thrillers where it is up to us to piece together exactly what's happening and, more importantly, what has happened to the characters to put them in the situation they are in. We see a fair bit that's troubling, and it's not hard to put together a naked woman, bleeding from the crotch, wandering down a Paris street at night-time, and the later image of a bloody corn cob. Some of the other stuff is more opaque, notably, who each person is and why they are interacting. This is also more important to the story."Les Salauds" tells a tragic story of incest and sexual slavery that is robbed of some of its power by the telling. When the final revelation comes, it's not that shocking, maybe because the aforementioned sights were already so disturbing, or because we are kept in the dark about who the characters are, seemingly to set the stage for one such revelation.There are much, much worse movies in the vein of "don't show, don't tell" - see "The Headless Woman" for an example - but "Les Salauds" is nonetheless unsatisfying in its conclusion. I felt like we didn't get enough from the characters to be surprised about them, as the movie wants us to be.

Marco is the captain of a supertanker. He's at sea and life is good.Pull the chain on that. Marco's sister Sandra calls him back in desperation: her husband has committed suicide, her daughter Justine is in a tailspin, and the family business is not going well. Sandra accuses wealthy business man Edouard Laporte as the cause of these ill fortunes. So Marco, in his own particular way, goes after Edouard.Marco's fortunes diminish, and he discovers a number of discouraging truths about his family. This gets more evident when a young man offers to sell Justine back to him for 5000 francs.Will Marco pull himself and his family out of this downward spiral, or will external forces be too great for that? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 6/10 For much of the screen time, there was not enough light or too much light, odd choices of camera angles, strange depth of field choices...in other words, much of the noir package. The filming of the car ride with passengers and drivers high on drugs was quite emblematic of this. I did not find this helpful or illustrative, even though this is a dark tale.Sound: 7/10 OK, redeemed by the sound track with the closing credits.Acting: 6/10Screenplay: 6/10 A bit lurching for my taste. The film jumps from segment to segment to segment, with time references not all that clear, with one message. All the characters are flawed and disgusting. Got it: noir.

A rambling script that jumps so often from one person to another; one scene to another; one plot structure to another that you're left wondering if this is a story or an exercise in the writers/director being enamored with their cleverness. The inconclusive and illogical, abrupt ending is further proof of the film makers' self-absorption. Excessive use of flash backs and constant, shifting brief moments with each character leaves the viewer caring less about the principal vehicle - the life of a young girl in a prostituting environment. I usually have high regards for French film studios efforts, especially with their crime/thriller movies, but in this case ... Final verdict - who cares!

On the whole Claire Dennis doesn't do accessible, it's far too plebeian and might actually entertain the masses rather than stimulate the academic-pseud axis. So it's a tad ironic that her new release features Vincent Lindon, one of the finest French actors of his generation who is incapable of turning in a bad performance even in a crock of merde like this; the irony is that Lindon also starred in the virtual two-hander Vendredi soir, with Valerie Lemercier, which remains arguably Dennis' most accessible film to date and for all I know she hired Lindon again with the idea of coming full circle. The plot, such as it is, is a succession of improbabilities the first of which took place off screen when Lindon signed over his share of the family shoe manufacturing business to his sister and brother-in-law who promptly ran it into the ground. Having established himself as a master mariner he walks away from THAT career equally impulsively in order to support his sister in the wake of her recent widowhood and a wild child daughter. With no visible means of support he moves into a luxury apartment building where Chiara Mastroianni enjoys a large apartment paid for by her older, sadistic, controlling, millionaire lover who is also - by sheer coincidence you understand - involved in the degradation of Lindon's niece. Naturally she is having sex with Lindon within hours of his moving in. Both Lindon and Mastroianni give excellent performances albeit as meaningless as beautiful fauna flourishing around a cesspool.