Review of Rust and Bone (2012) by Nedryerson1 — 15 Jan 2014

Rust and Bone is a brilliant movie, nothing like I have seen before. It is amazing how this film manage to show so much with little things, and those are a father with a son in need, a woman with an uncommon job and a dysfunctional love relationship.

The director also apply small camera shots and low lighting, in order to demonstrate in a better way the emotions of the characters and the cruelty of the reality. The idea of the story is to exhibit Ali, a man that suddenly becomes in charge of his son, but the thing is that he does not know how to do it.

When he or his son gets hungry, he looks for food scraps or steals from a store. If he needs money, he works in whatever it takes, no matter if other people get hurt. And when he is angry or stressed, he goes to a fight club.

The protagonist is like an animal, does what he wants when he wants. So out of nowhere, he meets Stephanie, a killer whale trainer. And as the same as her whales, she will train Ali to face the world correctly.

That is why he is rust, like a metal that cannot withstand the environment. And he needs to become bone, like Stephanie, that resists every obstacle in life. The most overwhelming part is the scene after the accident when she is on the rooftop of her building, practicing the old routine with the killer whales.

You can notice that when she raises her arms, her eyes reflect an ineffable feeling of nostalgia, but with a willing of fighting.