PIFF 35 Preview: BULLHEAD

The organized crime genre is a pretty crowded field but I'm fairly certain that Bullhead is the only film I've ever seen centered on the Flemish mafia.  Directed by Michael R. Roskam, Bullhead doesn't romanticize it's characters or their trade; these mobsters deal in bovine growth hormone, forcing the local ranchers and farmers of the Belgian countryside to produce "their cows."  The film begins just as a police investigator has been killed on the order of a crime boss.

If the crime angle is the wide view of the story, the close-in perspective lies with Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts), a mountain of man whose own daily use of steroids and hormone treatment therapy darkly parallels the business in which he is an enforcer.  Roskam slowly paints the details of Jacky's back story, showing us how a young child of promise was turned into a man who intimidates for a living.  Schoenaerts plays Jackie as a maladjusted child in a giant's body, aching with loss, unable to connect with others, and placed into dire circumstances where he stands to lose everything.

This is a gritty, excellent character piece masquerading as a crime thriller.  The majority of Belgian cinema I've encountered has been inspired either by the Dardenne brothers or the wry comedy of Finland's Aki Kaurismäki (Eldorado or Aaltra are examples of the latter's influence).  In this regard, Bullhead feels fresh and without precedent in the realm of Belgian imports; its nearest comparisons in tone being Steve McQueen's Hunger or David Michôd's Animal Kingdom.  It's a fascinating and disturbing ride, well worth the price of admission.

Bullhead will screen for the public at the Whitsell Auditorium on Feb. 11th at 12:30pm.  A second screening is scheduled on Feb. 14th at the Whitsell Auditorium at 8:45pm.

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ILLEGAL: Doing Time in Belgium

Having my recent experiences with Belgian films mostly confined to bittersweet comedies like Eldorado, I was somewhat unprepared for the unyielding bleakness of Olivier Masset-Depasse's Illégal, a film more in line with the emotional terrain of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's oeuvre than with the absurd humor of a work like Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine's Aaltra.

Winner of the Prix SACD at the 2010 Director's Fortnight at Cannes, Illégal highlights the plight of Tania (Anne Coesens), a woman who has fled Russia with her adolescent son in tow, seeking a better life in Belgium.  Their actual experience in this newly adopted homeland is far from ideal, as an overwhelming paranoia about discovery and deportation by the authorities becomes a part of their daily lives.  Early on, when the plot takes the expected turn and Tania is caught, she's separated from her son and thrown into a detainment center that resembles nothing less than a prison.

Massat-Depasse makes use of the fictional scenario as an opportunity to frankly discuss the real life treatment of illegal immigrants in contemporary Belgian society.  Tania and her fellow inmates undergo extreme physical and mental abuse both within the walls of the holding station and, especially, when forced to participate in repeated "deportation rituals" designed to shake loose a confession from those inmates withholding the basic information required by the government to enact a legal deportation process.

The film's grim story is well supported by the omnipresent gray tones mixed into the color palette of its cinematography.  The overall look of the film is a bit washed out but that, along with the use of hand held cameras throughout, helps forward the notion that we're peering into a reality lived by the dispossessed around the world, since the narrative is easily transposed to multiple nations whose actions surrounding illegal immigration are dubious at best.

As much as this sounds like an intellectual exercise on the part of the filmmakers, Coesens' powerfully nuanced performance as Tania is what keeps the movie from flying off the tracks and devolving into a formulaic message piece.  Watching as Tania agonizingly yearns for a reunion with her son, despite full knowledge of all the obstacles conspiring to keep that from occurring, is to witness a performance so grounded in character and realistic motivation that it actually inspires a belief in the viewer that, if sheer will were enough, Tania just might overcome her circumstances.


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