The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars

Bullhead
Michaël R. Roskam 2011 Belgium
Starring: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy, Barbara Sarafian, Tibo Vandenborre

Bullhead, Michaël R. Roskam's tale of violence and the 'hormone mafia', has big shoes to fill, having been compared by a lot of critics to Raging Bull, although that association says little about either film. Granted, both are gritty portraits of troubled masculinity that feature actors who've gained body mass and scenes of shadow boxing but that's pretty much where the similarities end. For one the bulls in this film are almost entirely literal and would be better described as sluggish. By the same logic you could also compare it to The Godfather: Part II because both concern family and the mafia and have extended flashback scenes but again they're nothing alike. The flashback scenes here span an altogether shorter time but give us some explanation for the main character Jacky's behaviour and mental (and physical) state and allow us to develop genuine empathy for him while also revealing the tragic irony that many of his more aggressive acts are frighteningly reminiscent of those of brutal attacker Bruno, who is responsible for most of his woes. The association is made even more obvious later when Bruno, now in an almost vegetative state, is visited by Jacky, who is now free to fight back but can't quite make himself do it. All Bruno can do in response is grunt and breathe heavily as if he's an animal. Throughout the film Jacky has looked like a beast is about to burst through his skin, when it finally does he too undergoes an astonishing transformation and thrashes and snorts like a buffalo being forced into a garden shed, taking out everybody in his path. Irony is a big part of Bullhead, not least in one scene that visually appears to be cruel and distressing but is actually a kind one - that of a caesarean performed on a cow. It also points to the film's central theme of man exerting power over nature. As Jacky Matthias Schoenaerts gives a towering, ferocious performance, even adopting a gait that makes him look like he's been shot in the pancreas, but still shows such fragility and timidity when faced with an old crush that he knows he can never fully pursue that, despite all the mayhem and steroids, you can't help but feel intensely sorry for him as, when it comes down to it, inside his monstrous frame is the essence of a child.

When the hand that does the violence cannot be caressed to pity.

Dry Summer
Metin Erksan 1964 Turkey
Starring: Erol Taş, Hülya Koçyiğit, Ulvi Dogan


Turkey might not be the first place many expect to find a lot of the components of Metin Erksan's Dry Summer. A tale of treachery between brothers, for example, is an overly common theme in Bollywood but less usual elsewhere. Likewise, neo-realism is more often than not associated with Italy but rarely thought of as having strayed east. Despite that, these disparate influences do come together well with brothers Osman and Hasan (and Hasan's wife Bahar) at war with their neighbours over the control of the water that runs from a spring on their land. Osman (played with an utter lack of redeeming features by one of Turkish cinema's greatest villains, Erol Taş) is ruthless, lecherous and thuggish, repeatedly holding his sister-in-law by the plaits, his eyes all over her arse. Midway through the film when he carries the family's dead dog home on his shoulders it's implied that he's the one who shot it, in an effort to get Hasan to take his side in his conflict with neighbouring farmers. Hasan meanwhile is good-natured, in love and wants nothing more than to be with Bahar, their relationship shot through with a vein of sensuality that extends to the whole film, from images of hands brushing legs to bread being baked, smelt and torn apart to Hasan crashing through tall reeds to find Bahar, guided only by her perfume - Bahar's legs actually feature a surprising amount too, splashing through water, being caressed and kissed by Hasan and having the poison of a snakebite sucked out of them by Osman, but I assure you it's a lot less pervy than that may sound. As prevalent as the sensuality is a serious sense of foreboding that rises as the heat does; by the time a forest fire is shown Osman is sweating bullets and not because of the fire. Even his beheading of a chicken (which he then chucks at Bahar) foreshadows both the aforementioned moment with the dog and the scene in which he's almost beaten to death by his opponents and literally throws himself at her. The same goes for the ever-present guns (every character appears to own several), the minute you see them you know that they're going to get used in the end. It's an excellent film with beautiful cinematography from a director and a nation that rarely find distribution here - it's taken 50 years, expansive restoration and the influence of Martin Scorsese for this to even get a DVD release. It's also a surprisingly forward-thinking one, pointing to the Turkish Republic's construction of a series of dams to deprive Syria and Iraq of water in the following years.