Bastards (2013)

The films of the genius Claire Denis often confuse and irritate American viewers in particular, because my fellow Americans are used to being told a story, not watching an image. In "Bastards" the idea is that too many conventions are dumped out with the scraps. It's difficult to follow something that is deliberately trying to confound your logical mind in order to get you to stop being so logical. Especially if the subject of the exposition is sex, and even more especially if the sex is incestuous--or appears to be, anyway.Denis deliberately cast female actors who resemble each other as a man's daughter, sister and lover. If you're not paying close attention (and even if you are) the blurring of boundaries is shocking. It will take the determined viewer a while to figure out what's supposed to be going on, especially if said viewer is reading the subtitles. I mean, how great is that? You read those little yellow notes and BOOM. This very weird thing is going on, that's not really weird because it's just an accident of appearances and a misunderstanding based on illusion.Got it? This manner of playing with your mind is what Claire Denis does in her films. It's not against the law or anything. But when it all starts to pick up speed and you're trying to understand what's happening in a film that refuses to hold your hand and tell you how to feel, you can end up, well, actually feeling something. Scary! Denis is making an comment on an observation. It's about the fact that models in slick magazines all look alike. Women are reduced to a commodity. One can be exchanged for another. What is an individual when a culture has reduced a person to a member of a class that is objectified? Well? The story within one of Denis' films is what is happening inside your head while you watch the movie. It's not on the screen. Like a monkey in a lab, your reactions tell the story and your reactions TO your reactions are the narrative.Good luck. You'll need it.

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.

The three female characters in Claire Denis' willfully obscure – visually as well morally, but also plot-wise - spin on the often exploitative genre of the revenge film, look eerily alike. Much to the confusion of some viewers, but there's a thematic reasoning behind this casting choice. Before I delve further into this, I'd like to consider the generic conventions of the revenge film and how they relate to Les Salauds. Convention dictates that a male protagonist, a lone wolf, returns to what is often his home town to avenge some evil done to his family or someone that was once close to him where institutionalized authority – police, justice – has failed. Although often not without moral ambiguity usually there's a sense of exploitative glorification of violence inherent to the genre's an eye for an eye ethics. In Les Salauds however the violence is dimly lit, often clumsy – not unlike a real fight. There are no one punch knock-outs, or drawn out choreography, just awkward, quickly dissolving scuffles that leave the chain-smoking protagonist gasping for air.As is illustrated by her depiction of violence Denis' film can admittedly be described within the vague generic outlines of the revenge film, but she skillfully uses its tropes to tell a story that is much more morally complex, that raises more questions than it answers - for the male protagonist as well as the audience - but even more so she uses this intrinsically male narrative and retells it by foregrounding the feminine characters. Marco has fled from the world of femininity leaving behind his wife, sister, daughters, niece and a family business of women's (!) shoes. After returning to his past he's never able to clearly see what he's gotten himself into - the truth is as obscure as the film's visual style – and his actions are motivated by the connection he has to the three main female characters.What binds these women – as a group, but in a sense also as individuals – is their passivity. Yet their submissiveness is not unambiguous, as they make a more or less deliberate choice to subjugate themselves to a dominant male. Their relationship to the males is, albeit somewhat masochistically, to a degree symbiotic. Although the motives of every character in this film are murky and veiled, the viewer can infer what the women have to gain from their position of passiveness: a glamorous lifestyle and a child that's well taken care of (Raphalle), the possibility to attribute your downfall and moral failure as a mother to the (absent) male other (Sandra), or the hazy seduction of amorous and druggy transgressions (Justine).If these women act, running away or even if they fire a gun – which could be considered the ultimate act – they do so to ultimately solidify their position of dependence on some male 'salaud', bastard.

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!