Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Frank Lammers, Jeanne Dandoy.
Languages: French, Dutch.
Plot
Jacky (Schonenaerts) is a cattle farmer who is involved in
the shady world of hormone trafficking. He uses the hormones on his cattle
causing them to be bigger and carry more meat, but he uses the hormones on
himself where the product has the same effect.
He looks and acts like the most masculine of men. Then, a dodgy Vet gets
Jacky in on a deal with a Flemish beef trader, but a policeman is killed and he
unexpectedly meets an old friend from the past, which stirs memories of a dark
and life changing incident from childhood.
Review (with spoilers)
Essentially this is a film about a sensitive and gentle man
whose development is cruelly curtailed when a bully, in a particularly
horrendous scene, crushes the young Jacky’s testicles in effect castrating him
(or gelding him like a young bullock) Jacky has never come to terms with the
terrible incident, and now he has bulked himself up to a point where he is more
masculine than any of the men around him, presumably he also does this to
appeal to women. But the muscles have
the opposite effect on the one woman he has feelings for, she finds him ‘’too
muscle bound.''
But his big problem is that although he looks like a bulked
up grown man underneath he is an overly sensitive and his development seems to
have stopped both physically and mentally at the point at which the incident
occurred. His social skills are limited
and when he tries to get a date with the girl he likes, he frightens her, and
is uncommunicative. Later he comments that his natural inclinations,
that is, what he was born to do, get married and have children has been taken
away from him. Even his cattle can manage
to do what he cannot.
But of course this
is what is important to Jacky because he is a sensitive and kind man. His friend, Diederick on the other hand is
more interested in seducing a police officer to whom he informs.
The study of Jacky's character really makes the film,
singularly lonely character (Schonenaerts is outstanding as a sensitive man
robbed of everything that gives life meaning). His imposing presence and
violence at the start of the film falls away as the sensitive childlike inner
man expresses himself.
The film perhaps would have worked a little better without
the Hormone mafia element, the policeman’s death and sub plots of car mechanics
worried about a BMW incriminating wheels was distracting and uninteresting and
detracted from the real human drama that is at the heart of the film. The flashbacks break the flow of the film and
are traumatic and ghastly but equally the audience will not lose sight on what
must constantly be on Jacky's mind.
Budget: 2 million Euros (about 1.7 million pounds). Feature
film debut for writer/director.
4 out 5 stars.
4 out 5 stars.
