Bullhead
Directed by Michael R Roskam
Written by Michael R Roskam
with Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy
2011
A frustrating film, only about half of which is the melancholic semi-tragedy it wants to be. Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts) works on his family cattle farm in Flanders. His huge frame is pumped as full of hormones as the cattle he breeds, a compensation for the fearsome damage done to him when he was a boy. The memory of this is suddenly rendered all the more clearly and painfully when he and his associates embark upon a new deal with Marc de Kuyper (Sam Louwyck), a feared beef trade gangster, and Jacky is brought face to face with Diederick Maes (Jeroen Perceval), a figure inextricably linked to that childhood nightmare. Although he now wants nothing to do with the deal, his friends insist on going through with it, and despite his continuing, fumbling attempts to live normally Jacky’s life starts to spiral downwards through the shame and regret brought to the surface by this chance meeting.
The “chance” of the meeting is important, as in reality we are not watching a crime thriller but a very emotional drama about an individual whose condition and circumstance have forever been beyond his control. He lives and works where he does because that was where and how he was brought up, and his childhood trauma prevents him from moving on while his brother has gone away and started a family; the crime committed against him was a senseless act of violence by a person against whom he cannot even take satisfactory revenge; and the web of surveillance the police have upon the people he ends up in business with begins to close in on him based on a series of coincidences and irrelevant personal resentments. Another character may refer to him as “Bullhead” due to his colossal stature, but it doesn’t take too much insight to see his real similarity to the cattle he raises.
It should be clear that the basis is there for a sad and powerful film, and Schoenaerts has a natural ability, also seen in Rust and Bone (which was actually made after Bullhead, but released here first), to be terrifying and pitiable all at the same time. The mis-step occurs not in his story exactly, but in the depiction of the surrounding events. The way writer-director Michael R Roskam’s screenplay works means that we are constantly cutting away from Jacky to see how things are getting on elsewhere, in the criminal underworld or the police operation, in scenes which ultimately are only there to set up the conditions for Jacky to meet his fate. This is fine in principle, except that too much time is spent on them considering none of the other characters are as interesting or well-acted as the lead, and furthermore there is a small but very noticeable discrepancy in tone between them and Jacky’s story. The quiet yet imposing Schoenaerts, acting mainly with his physical presence, feels like he is in a completely different film to when we cut away to see the slightly unconvincing gangsters or the unlikeable police investigators. Worst of all are a pair of comic-relief Walloons, who not only feel out of place but end up playing a pivotal role in the whole affair in a bumbling, comedic way that saps the final segment of most of its power. The result is a slightly schizophrenic experience that doesn’t fit together properly, and to be blunt just isn't as sad as it should be. It’s all the worse in that you can see exactly what Roskam is going for and truly want it to work, because it’s clear how good it would be.
Tom
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