Deep at the heart of Claire Denis’ 2013 neo-noir film Bastards (or Les Salauds in French) is a complex web of conspiracies and mysteries revolving around the death of a father. Frequently in films, a death in the family is a root cause of melodrama. Directors will craft a story about overcoming grief and moving on from the past, whilst remembering what was lost; such as Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, or more recently Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car. However, in this film, the tragic loss of a loved one is actually the instigator for the protagonist to investigate the murky and violent past of the central bourgeoisie families, whose involvement with this death remain mystifying. These investigations lead them into a horrifying nexus between sexual violence and corporate espionage. Bastards takes heavy influence from classic noirs and ‘90s revenge thrillers but strips the genres back to their bare materials, reconstructing it as something more barren and melancholic. Whilst the film has an incredibly alluring central mystery, Denis seems uninterested in telling a conventional story, emphasising on creating an ominous atmosphere and teasing answers along like a pensive breadcrumb trail.
Les Salauds translates directly to “The Bastards,” although the connotation in the French language is not as simple. It is often referred to as somebody who is morally repugnant, vile and seen as wretched — a harsh word with a strong meaning. Most obviously, the title refers to the enigmatic villain Edouard Laporte (Michel Subor); although the morally ambiguous intentions of many of the characters results in the dilution of the word’s meaning. Laporte is a shady businessman who has deals in numerous countries around the world with deep running ties to the family at the centre of the film. It is hinted that he helps them out financially, as their business is facing bankruptcy, in return for having access to sexual favours from the family’s daughter, who is called Justine (Lola Créton). Through this harrowing deal, the film’s title also refers to the daughter’s family, who have an active role in the abuse that Justine has suffered through being used as a bargaining tool between two capitalist entities. This pluralism also feeds into the recurring themes in Denis’ work of the effect globalisation and international politics has on individuals; the titular bastards representing a network of people rather than just a singular person.
An onslaught of heavy rain opens the film, providing an immediate cold and downbeat mood to the film. Over the intense tapping sound comes Tindersticks’ haunting ambient score, which sort of merges with the sound of the rain, creating an incredibly rich and layered soundscape. The band, who have collaborated with Denis nine times now, are known for their baroque styled soundtracks pulling from classical music and jazz. However, here the music is barren and almost apocalyptic, making heavy use of synthesisers. This different style fits perfectly with the neo-noir trappings of the film and clearly takes inspiration from many classic scores from the ’80s, but adds an element of melancholia to it. As the opening sequence continues a man is sheltered from the rain in an office, the low light combined with the medium distance shot means we never really get a true glimpse of his face. He remains detached and enigmatic, until the final time we see him on screen. Despite the purposeful blurring of his face, we can see a deep look of sorrow. Denis inserts a close up shot of a sealed letter, a suicide note, informing us clearly of what is about to happen without needing to use any dialogue. Another scene is interlaced with this of a nude girl wandering the dark, barely lit streets of Paris — a victim of a violent sexual assault.
Denis’ elliptic style means that we never see the violence, only the aftermath; a father’s death or the abuse of a child. In Bastards, the violence is abstracted out through this elliptic method. We do not need to see exactly what takes place. Rather, the rippling effects and repercussions of violence are much more important within the film than seeing the acts of cruelty take place before our own eyes. Denis’ films are often soaked in realism with the characters and worlds grounded in a modernist reality. Plot and character development remain secondary to the principle notion of crafting something that invokes a deep emotional response, where the atmosphere of the film is almost pouring out of the screen and becoming tangible. Gestures are used to mitigate the need of excessive dialogue, crafting a cinema that relies on a montage of gentle actions that culminate in eliciting an impassioned feeling — usually one of loneliness. As Bert Cardullo wrote in The Films of Robert Bresson, the French film director said, “Our hands are autonomous. Our gestures, our limbs, themselves are autonomous. They’re not under our command. That’s cinema. What cinema is not, is thinking out a gesture, thinking out words.” These words are easily applied to Denis’ oeuvre, however, in Bastards, the gentle nature of these gestures is replaced with something far more sinister. No hand is touched, no glance given, no transaction made without a deeper, more monstrous intention behind it.
No doubt that the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, where a French politician who sexually assaulted a hotel maid in 2011 with seemingly zero repercussions, had a deep effect on the conception of Bastards. Khan’s case hangs over the film like a blackened cloud, with the character of Laporte feeling like a stand-in for a real person such as Khan. Laporte is a suit-wearing capitalist who, on the surface, appears just like a wealthy family man only concerned by profits and business. As the film progresses, it slowly chips away at Laporte’s humanity revealing the repugnant truths that lurk underneath all figures of capitalistic power, with the end of the film having him represent the true sadistic nature of the bourgeois class — someone who uses his statue and power to commit horrific crimes. Bastards is a deeply nihilistic film that construes its view of humanity as something that is inherently evil; almost all of the characters, or you could refer to them as simply pawns or bodies, in this film have their ideals and morals bent when they are in need of material or psychological gain.
Denis uses this moral ambiguity to capture the soul of the classical noir incredibly well, replicating the frequently fatalistic and dark tales of post-war America to post-capitalist France. We have: the classic femme fatale (the wife of a brutally perverse businessman whose complicity his crimes unravels slowly), people haunted by their pasts (a mother’s complacency with her husband’s incredibly disturbing business deals), and a deep feeling of paranoia and disillusionment from society (a man who is unable to cope with the horrible things his family have succumb to due to capitalist greed). However, this isn’t to say that the film doesn’t also fight back against traditional genre trappings. Bastard’s central protagonist Marco (Vincent Lindon) is not a private detective or police officer, and he has very little of the wit that a character like Philip Marlowe might have. Instead he is a divorcee, a man who very rarely sees his kids, and who has spent most of his life isolated at sea. His absorption back into the world of his bourgeois family and their business is a shocking revelation of how this world really operates. Denis manages to remove the suave nature that often comes with noirs and replaces it with something more sombre, leaving a cold and detached film behind.
This detachment often makes the film feel like a dream, or a feverish nightmare, which is a style that is rarely found in her previous work. For the past two decades, Denis has worked with her long time collaborator and cinematographer Agnes Godard on crafting an incredibly subdued and naturalistic style. Seldom do her films have flashy action sequences or make use of effects (either practical or digital); they are more grounded and almost feel like slice of life films. Whether it is the sweaty and dangerous realm of underground cock fighting (No Fear, No Die), French legionnaires performing military exercises in the blistering sun (Beau Travail), or the tumultuous relationship between a single father and his daughter (35 Shots of Rum), all of these films capture their subjects and actions in a way that makes every feel so tangible and believable. In Bastards, this feeling of immersion is replaced with an almost Brechtian feeling of detachment, one where you feel as if you are on the outside looking in. It remains an alienating experience that lacks a lot of the emotional punch her other films bask in, most likely down to the almost oppressive atmosphere of the film. Bastards is the first film Denis shot in digital. The low light imagery of digital cameras help craft an expressionist portrait of the miserable Parisian streets. Her use of extreme close ups, often framing only a single person at a time to highlight their isolation, combined with Godard’s digital textures, give it a visual style akin to Michael Mann’s early digital films such as Collateral and Miami Vice.
Alienation is a common theme in Denis’ films. Her characters are often lonely wanderers looking to forge connections with both the people and places that surround them. Often, these characters struggle with this due to the harshness of everyday life or the social constructs placed on us. Despite the seclusion of these characters, her films remain sensual, harmonising both isolation and eroticism in a way that feels genuine; managing to capture deep intimacy through the most banal moments of everyday life. Whilst Bastards remains a disturbing and harrowing film, it still has the ability to capture these key feelings that her films commonly evoke. Not only is the film’s central character, Marco, an incredibly lonely man, but so is Laporte’s wife Raphaëlle (Chiara Mastroianni ). Her life is that of a typical bourgeois housewife: She lives often in isolation (due to her husband’s frequent business trips), managing the house and looking after their young child. Denis makes strong emphasis on highlighting these mundane tasks through the use of repetition, in the same way somebody like Chantal Akerman or Bresson might do. It is through this that we are able to connect with her character despite the class difference, and the fact she is married to a horrifying monster. Both of these people feel alienated from their lives, albeit in different ways, which is what leads them to finding a connection. Whether it is Marco throwing down a box of cigarettes that Raphaëlle desperately seeks, or a vehement kiss on the staircase of the flat block they both share.
Throughout a 30 year career, Denis has remained a figurehead of European cinema, towing the thin line between critically acclaimed darling and provocative radical. Her films distance the viewer but allow enough of an emotional connection to be made that they feel inviting, despite often covering dark themes. Like her polarising 2001 release Trouble Every Day, a sensual and transgressive romantic horror film about modern day vampires, Bastards pushes this alienating feeling into the foreground of the film instead of simmering underneath. Because of this, the film garnered middling reviews on its release; with critics from The Guardian, The Financial Times, and IndieWire claiming that Denis’ style is too fervent here, or that it was simply too dreary and downbeat. It is too dark and tormented to be a standard arthouse drama, but it isn’t as exciting or action packed as most modern neo-noirs are. The film very rarely gives the answers that the audience might seek, and when it finally does, in its distressing final sequence, you will wish that you never seeked them in the first place. There is no catharsis to be found in this Dostoevskian tale of guilt, alienation and the true barbarous reality at the heart of the bourgeoisie, just a deep feeling of melancholia.
