Bastards (Claire Denis, 2013)

[OnOnt]

I trust Artificial Eye to put this on Blu, I can't see why they'd relegate it to DVD.

[Matt]

IFC is the US distributor, so Criterion will have a chance at releasing this if they want it. Let's hope they don't consider it "minor Denis."

[mistakaninja]

Couple of thoughts.

On subsequent viewings I thought it was obvious that Laporte too is a sort of a red herring, an easy target because he's got all the signifiers of a "fucking bastard", so that we can conveniently relieve all the other characters from culpability and see them as innocent victims of this evil mastermind. But apart from Sandra's conviction of his involvement, the only thing incriminating him that we see is his presence on the surveillance camera photos (which definitely confirm that he's involved in what's happening, but it's certainly a long way from confirming he's somehow "behind it all").

Regarding Laporte -

Spoiler

He's on the surveillance camera outside and he's present in the footage that Sandra watches with the doctor at the end of the film. I agree that he isn't some evil mastermind, but him being there at the end in the room with Justine and her father perhaps suggested he was prepared to leverage both the power he had over Silvestri (financially) and of the Silvestris' incestual relationship to satisfy his own voyeuristic pecadillos. Whilst the relationship between Justine and her father was clearly consensual (at least on her part ) the level of violence and the subsequent suicide could indicate Silvestri's own involvement in that specific incident wasn't entirely without external pressure.

Regarding the narrative -

Spoiler

the only bit that baffled me on first viewing was the short sequence where we see Raphaëlle finding her son's bicycle in the undergrowth, and she's crying and the police are there. I thought at first that it was something we would return to, even though it didn't feel like something Marco would do, hurt the child. Then we didn't see it again, but on second viewing I took it to be Marco fantasizing his revenge as he is lying there in bed (having dropped cigarettes out of the window to Raphaëlle. It still feels slightly incongruent to me as he was dreaming about the mother's grief rather than Laporte's reaction to it, but perhaps that says something about where his mind already was at that point.

[repeat]

Good points, you're probably right about the Laporte connection. That short sequence you refer to in the latter paragraph totally threw me off on the first viewing too - but yeah, it is exactly what you took it to be (a previous cut had an explanatory voice-over, but Denis took it out - probably a good decision actually)

I didn't realize IFC distribution might mean a Criterion - that would be cool, I guess it depends on how well it does theatrically. Would love to see more Denis in the collection. And of course AE will probably put out a Blu, I already forgot they acquired this...

[Oedipax]

Regarding the narrative -

Spoiler

the only bit that baffled me on first viewing was the short sequence where we see Raphaëlle finding her son's bicycle in the undergrowth, and she's crying and the police are there. I thought at first that it was something we would return to, even though it didn't feel like something Marco would do, hurt the child. Then we didn't see it again, but on second viewing I took it to be Marco fantasizing his revenge as he is lying there in bed (having dropped cigarettes out of the window to Raphaëlle. It still feels slightly incongruent to me as he was dreaming about the mother's grief rather than Laporte's reaction to it, but perhaps that says something about where his mind already was at that point.

Spoiler

This bit threw me a little bit in my initial viewing as well - I took it initially as a tonal thing, a way of showing the dread Marco is feeling about the things he's beginning to suspect about the situation back home, or perhaps that he's worried about the child being with Laporte, that kind of thing. But in the Cahiers interview, Denis does clarify this as being (for her at least) more about showing Marco is literally thinking about killing/disappearing the child as a form of revenge against Laporte, and perhaps his imagination's emphasis on the grief of the mother shows he's already conflicted about the collateral fallout of such an action.

My (rocky) translation:

Spoiler

CdC: There's a very beautiful sequence, when he [Marco] is laying on the bed, the fantasy of the small boy dead.

Denis: Like he's avenging in advance, in thought.

CdC: That shows that he is capable of having these evil thoughts.

Denis: He wants to make her suffer, but he is almost in advance suffering what he's going to endure. Everyone asked me to cut this image. But I really wanted it.

CdC: During the projection at Cannes, you added a voiceover over this image. It's a shame because the fantasy takes a turn towards being overly explicit.

Denis: I agree, I also regret this and I think I'm going to cut it.

[Oedipax]

I totally agree that family is a central theme here, and that Denis is not indicting any one character or making moral judgements against them. That is the beauty of it, she portrays complex human relationships for what they are, totally dependent on past experiences and historical circumstances. Granted, the shock and indignation of the first viewing has still not worn off, but by not indicting any one character I think Denis is definitely indicting a system that leads people to behave as depicted in the film.

Here's a relevant piece from the Cahiers interview that speaks to this:

Spoiler

(After Denis explains she doesn't see anything particularly wrong/malevolent in Laporte's treatment of Raphaëlle)

CdC: So then where is the evil in the film?

Denis: The evil places itself uniquely for the character of Marco, who discovers that everything is born of a culpability, an apathy, a weakness, which is all amassed together like a millefeuille [pastry]. The blame connects to the father, who kills himself at the beginning of the film. Maybe it's a disgust with himself. But as far as knowing where the evil is, I don't think it needs to be named. I don't make films where there is good and evil, so I couldn't care less about knowing where the evil is. It is somewhere in the film, I see it in many places. But at a given moment, it's Marco who sees the evil. And I think that the film understands it at the same time as him, it walks alongside the character.

[Oedipax]

Every woman in the film is completely and utterly dependent on a man for their very survival. Sandra is broken and lost without her husband - like her daughter wandering naked in the street (notice in beginning we see her covered with a blanket just after we see the daughter). Raphaelle especially; when viewed in this way her final action makes more sense. As opposed to her "staying true to her family", I think it is more indicative of her subservience and her need to "caress the rod that rules" her.

And one more relevant piece:

Spoiler

CdC: Why are the two female characters complicit and passive with the decisions of men?

Denis: Perhaps I'm a little misogynist. But, myself, I sense how much I could easily be passive. And that it would be almost more easy for me because I could take shelter behind the fact of being a woman. Passivity is put forth to women in the small kit of social life. When we are adolescents, we perceive that there's a way to use passivity as a means of survival. What makes us resist passivity and what makes women courageous is exactly that they sense at what point it would be easier to be seated. This acute understanding makes one want to surpass it.

CdC: But you don't show that in the film. In White Material more, perhaps.

Denis: In White Material it's something else. At that point we are closer to madness than courage. She is brave, which is to say she can confront everything. But there is a foolishness which is related to the fact that she is in the arena as the only white person. [...]

CdC: I was surprised to find once again this image of the complicit woman in your film, which we have seen a lot of at Cannes.

Denis: Oh really? In all cases I don't have this image of women. When I work with Isabelle Huppert or Béatrice Dalle, we don't work at all with this spirit of passivity or cowardice. I don't think women are cowards. Passivity isn't cowardice. It's a way of escaping. It's rare that I can say of a character that he is a coward. It's an accusation that's too authoritarian, which I resist. The binary of courage/cowardice doesn't interest me. I have the impression that we pass between the two, for me in any case.

CdC: It's the Renoirian idea that 'everyone has their reasons'?

Denis: Yes, as we all do. I'm a huge coward at times and I accommodate this cowardice and say I have my reasons, that I can't do otherwise. Other times I'm courageous, but also because I can't do otherwise. I don't say 'like Renoir,' but like the people of life, like in the novels of Faulkner. These are all flimsy heroes.

CdC: But you have a very edgy title, Bastards, which could maybe be a denunciation.

Denis: But there aren't any bastards in the film. Not really.

CdC: So why this title, then?

Denis: Because I love the French title of the film by Kurosawa [The Bad Sleep Well / Les salauds dorment en paix], and I think also because it's what we say to ourselves when we think of this type of story: the rich are bastards, a father who does that to his daughter is a bastard. But for me, I don't judge. These are 'almost bastards,' perhaps.

[Oedipax]

Just noticed Artificial Eye is putting this out on blu-ray later this month - both the French and U.S. video releases were DVD only, at least so far.

[therewillbeblus]

Bastards destroyed me on a second viewing- easily my favorite 'dark' Denis, and probably my favorite film of hers after from U.S. Go Home. I didn't know you could deconstruct film noir this aggressively and deep into the hard ground, with such vicious thrust bent towards elliptically emotional terrain. This may be the best demonstration of Denis' impossible style that fuses coolness with fervent urgency. I'm unsure whether to smile or cry at the midway love scene, and if issuing any one response, who for? But I also felt that way throughout the entire film, and it's all the better for provoking all the feelings one can experience and giving us no where to place them, as such a state mirrors the characters' own trapped positions that are both self-directed and helplessly fated.

I'm surprised to see that some fans of this film don't like Both Sides of the Blade, since that film seems to be wielding with the same strategy of dissembling genre into nebulous isolation, only applied to melodrama instead of noir. Of course Denis intentionally obliterates the sandboxes she's playing in until they're obsolete, revealing naked text treated with the same restrained affection, but that doesn't negate the value in the process of getting there! Nor does it change the affecting relationship between method and substance at the other hand, which feels synonymous in implicit density across both works.