Bastards

I've seen a few of the films of Claire Denis and one thing she does not do is spoon-feed the audience. Her 2013 films, Bastards, takes some time letting the audience into the story--it's like watching someone put together a jigsaw puzzle, the image slowly becoming understandable. But by the end of the film you realize you're quietly devastated.

This film starts with some scenes that don't make sense until later in the film. A man has died. A young woman walks naked down the street. Then we meet a captain of a tanker ship (Vincent Lindon), who has quit his job. It starts to become clear--he is the brother-in-law of the man who died, who in fact committed suicide. Lindon's sister is the mother of the naked young woman, who was sexually tortured. She blames a man who had loaned her money to keep her shoe company afloat. Lindon, it seems, is plotting revenge.

He starts by beginning an affair with the man's wife (Chiara Mastroainni, who is daughter of Marcello Mastroainni and Catherine Deneuve--nice genes). At first it wasn't clear to me if they knew each other before, because it was easy for him to get her into bed (the husband is much older man). Lindon's end game isn't clear, but I think that was part of the film--he had cut himself off from his family, and wanted to do something but had no clear idea how.

Bastards ends unpredictably and in a very sordid manner, as the young girl (who has to have reconstructive surgery on her vagina because she was penetrated with a corn cob) returns to her life of sexual misadventure. And just who the bastards are is left an open question.

This is not an easy film to watch and not an ideal date movie. The pace is slow, the demeanor somber--there's not much levity. But as I started to understand the import of the film it grew on me, and one of these days Denis is going to break through in a big way. Or maybe not, maybe that would only spoil it.