Bullhead

Written and Directed by Michael R. Roskam

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.