Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

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

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

gergelyh-15596 This film seems to me strangely overrated here. The story is promising indeed but not very well executed. All the people, especially the evil ones, act mechanically here -- even the sinful SM orgy is done apathetically, like some boring work routine. The weakest part is Raphaelle's character, very underwritten and Chiara Mastroianni cannot compensate for this either. She should be deeply content and at the same time desperate in the role of maitresse/mother, should be very beautiful and exciting (what she is not, she's not ugly but worn out) to explain even a cold affection from the part of the demanding M. Laporte and Marco's un-tactical fit of passion in the end. There should be chemistry between her and Marco from the beginning, but we do not see that and her involvement with him feels totally unfounded. Actually they seem to feel awkwardly when together, even their lovemaking is hard to watch, rough but not passionate and hardly the source of emotional satisfaction she must have missed with Laporte... Even her life with her son lacks any vitality, we could as well look at two customers in a furniture store. Theoretically we know what she is expected to feel -- or the suspenseful ending would not be believable - - but it is only a cold knowledge.Cinematography is surprisingly bad sometimes: the way the important car crash is filmed usually can be seen in very old and very low-budget movies only. The good parts: Vincent Lindon tries his best, he feels genuine in this hard role. Music is more than adequate. Plus the vintage Alfa Romeo, well, *that* is a masterpiece.

suite92 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.

Sindre Kaspersen French author, screenwriter, film professor and director Claire Denis' twelfth feature film which she co-wrote with French screenwriter Jean-Pol Fargeau, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival in 2013, was screened in the Masters section at the 38th Toronto International Film Festival in 2013, was shot on locations in France and is a France-Germany co-production which was produced by producers Vincent Maraval, Olivier Théry-Lapiney and Laurence Clerc. It tells the story about a former naval officer named Marco Silvestri whom after learning that something has happened to his friend named Jacques, leaves his job to support his sister named Sandra, then learns that her daughter named Justine has been hospitalized and begins studying a woman named Raphäelle who lives with her son named Joseph and her husband named Edouardo. Distinctly and masterfully directed by French filmmaker Claire Denis, this finely paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws a multifaceted portrayal of a French father, brother and captain on a ship whom whilst looking for his niece acquaints a married mother whose main concern in life besides the well-being of her son, is that no one else has a more fulfilling life than hers. While notable for its distinct and atmospheric milieu depictions, reverent and crucial cinematography by cinematographer Agnès Godard, production design by production designer Michel Barthélémy and use of sound, colors and light, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about atrocious and dehumanizing crimes against youths and children which illustrates how positively audacious cinema can be when executed by a filmmaker with an immaculate cinematic language and where a middle-aged man initiates an unscrupulous romance with a stranger whilst a daughter is dancing with death, depicts several dense and mysterious studies of character and contains a great and timely score by English composer Stuart A. Staples.This increasingly dramatic, perspicacious and romantic master-act in audio-visual proficiency which is set in the capital city of France in the 21st century and where a man's hazardous search for a disappeared close relative leads him on an unrighteous path where barbarianism governs, is impelled and reinforced by its densely fragmented narrative structure, subtle character development, rhythmic continuity, efficient film editing, distinct humane undertones and style of filmmaking, eloquent use of music, appropriate title which is a social comment in itself, breath-taking last scene, telling comment by Raphäelle : "What's so great about your life?", the poignant acting performances by French actor Vincent Lindon and French-Italian actress and singer Chiara Mastroianni and the good acting performances by French actress Julie Bataille and French actor Michel Subor. An austerely emphatic, astonishingly envisaged and obscurely atmospheric narrative feature.

maurice yacowar Claire Denis' Bastards is about bastards, alright, specifically bastards who sexually abuse those who are dependent upon them. The theme obviously reflects upon dysfunctional family relationships and the tacit complicity that allows sexual exploitation to flourish. But in the context of Denis' other work the domestic sexual dynamic points to a larger, political issue: the victim's complicity in his/her/their victimization. At a time where there are political uprisings everywhere, where the longtime colonized cry out for their independence, integrity and freedom, Ms Denis' point is this: We still need more rebellions. Too many colonizers are clinging to power because their victims let them. In the film the hero Marco (Vincent Lindon) moves between two mothers and their domineering masters. His sister, to whom he ceded the family's thriving women's sexy shoe manufacturing company, watched her husband run the business into bankruptcy. She has also watched him turn their daughter Justine (Lola Creton), whose very name evokes a Sadean symphonic, into a druggie, sex object and suicide. This mother pleads helplessness, blaming everyone -- her brother, her husband, the doctor, the cops, her daughter -- for Justine's horrid fate, without ever acknowledging her own abdication of parental responsibility. She especially blames her husband's wealthy powerful partner Laporte (Michel Subor) both for her husband's suicide and their daughter's seduction. The latter charge proves imprecise, as the home movies ultimately reveal Laporte only a witness to Justine's abuse by her father. Laporte figures more prominently in the other relationship. He has fathered a son with the beautiful Raphaelle (Chiara Mastroianni), who lives in a lavish apartment Laporte funds in Marco's apartment building. Whatever his initial motives, Marco finds a genuine passion in his relationship with Raphaelle and affection in her son. In a fugitive hint of incest his lover looks just like his sister but for the former's odd mole. Marco abandons his seafaring career -- the happy life of the loner, a captain who from his family's perspective has fled his responsibilities -- in order to save his sister and niece.His involvement with Raphaelle brings him closer to the evil magnate Laporte but at the cost of Raphaelle keeping her son. To serve her vile master she opts to kill her lover Marco instead of him. Thus the colonized kiss the hand that stifles them, or caress the rod that rules them.