Rust and Bone

For my money, Jacques Audiard’s staggering romantic drama Rust and Bone was the finest film of 2012 and indeed the best film in competition at Cannes that year. Cotillard’s sensational performance as Stephanie is a hallmark of quality and emotional quantity.

She plays a whale trainer at an aqua park who during a routine presentation, is taken under by a mammal and nearly killed. Left with the emotional and psychical scars after her ordeal, she strikes up a relationship with a rough-and-tumble fighter (an exquisite Matthias Schonaerts) with whom she attempts to find a new lease of life. Rust and Bone is poetry in motion; an irrevocably beautiful, provocative and intricate portrait of humanity that meditates and bewitches with every single frame.

This the film Audiard was born to direct and indeed for Cotillard to lead – her range is ever-expanding and her character ever blooming; never is Stephanie predictable or manipulated, rather a spirit gliding who absorbs and clarifies the sun-kissed sands she resides by. Alexandre Desplat’s rousing score throbs and thrashes; the notes strikes with the same accuracy and pace as the crashing waves upon the shore. Stephane Fontane’s cinematography marvellously colours the awe-inspired world with bold brushstrokes. Katy Perry’s Firework is used more puzzlingly wonderful than you could ever imagine.

Yet when it’s all boiled down, what really makes this a true masterpiece is the characters and those who embody them. Marion Cotillard absolutely owns this one.