An alienated man returns to Paris in heavy rainfall in an attempt to mend family affairs in the wake of a suicide and substantial monetary damage. He discovers that human hearts, including his own, are not as repairable as he would prefer. Director Claire Denis displays a mastery of imagery, detail, tension and emotion in a dark story that goes back and forth in time and patiently reveals secrets. The introverted characters of her story attempt to react with confidence and courage to the bleak circumstances, malevolent figures, and fears that hem them in, yet their trust and hope hang on a thread. The film is enthralling, dark and brooding.

A slow paced film, a simple plot and an unsatisfying ending for what is ultimately a 'seen it all before' revenge story. The ingredients for a film tailor made for me to hate.But somehow it worked. Yes, there's not much to it, more atmosphere than story, but it gripped me throughout.An indication of how much I'm enjoying a film is the first time I check how long is left. I didn't do that at all during Les Salauds.It's terribly dark and downbeat, and don't imagine things will turn out how you might expect or want them to. But if you're OK with that, and have some patience, this is worth seeking out.

I realised after watching Bastards that I am a Claire Denis fan. I appreciate her entire body of work and I knew early on she was one of my favourite directors. Each film she has made has moved me and stayed with me.I like her way of filming a story. She never spells the story out for us, none of the characters come out and tell us how they are feeling; instead we have to find our own way into their worlds with visual clues. It is for us to see and follow, to be active in our observations. Somehow Claire Denis manages to reveal things to us in a soft, unassuming way, which then affects us when we read the intense and often deeply buried emotion that spills out.For the making of Bastards, Claire Denis has returned to her team of long-time collaborators, including cinematographer Agnès Godard, indie band Tindersticks for their atmospheric soundtrack, and actors like Vincent Lindon, Gregoire Colin and Michel Subor.With Bastards, Chiara Mastroianni (Beloved) joins this entourage, as does Lola Créton (Goodbye First Love, Something in the Air). While Mastroianni gives her best performance on screen, Créton reveals a lot of herself without ever actually saying more than a few words.Viewers that have not seen any of her previous films may find it harder to appreciate the qualities and intensity of the movie. We are quickly drowning in a story where nearly every character is not likable - here the title Bastards feels very apt.It's a dark and raw film. It has the shadowy mystery of The Intruder, the emotional disturbance of Trouble Every Day, and the intimacy of Vendredi Soir. It's a sordid and brutal revenge drama, but it's also a true modern film noir. Enigmatic and detailed, with dark textures. Sharing with us the fragile and troubled human condition, the characters' bodies are explored in close up, the texture of the skin, the marks and blemishes staring back at us.But, ultimately, what Denis nails every time is the mood. The unseen, unheard mood. The impression we are left with, the vibrations of human energy. This is the real mark of a Claire Denis film.

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.