Leaving the beautiful, long-take photography characteristic of her past celebrated films for crudely edited, cheap-looking digital video and jumping headlong into the revenge thriller drama, Claire Denis‘ “The Bastards” was eye opener when it hit Cannes last month in more ways than one. And it’s been hard to describe for those who haven’t seen it, but now a new French trailer is here to give fans of the filmmaker a taste of the direction she’s gone in.
Starring Vincent Lindon, Chiara Mastroianni and Lola Creton, the story — told in a fractured way that you have to piece together as the movie goes along — essentially follows a man seeking vengeance against the people who forced his brother-in-law to commit suicide. Along the way, he learns that some dirty dudes engaged in some pretty horrific sexual abuse with his niece and he begins a pretty elaborate plan to balance the scales. So yeah, it’s an arthouse “Taken” to some degree, but Denis keeps you always guessing (for better or worse) right through the haunting and thoroughly disturbing finale.
We wrote that ultimately, the movie “feels like what happens when an undeniably great filmmaker stoops to sensationalism.” The picture opens in France on August 7th but is still without a U.S. distributor. Watch below. [Le Blog Du Cinema]