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Selected Press Quotes
Disturbingly visceral... a violent and complex work . Fionnuala Halligan, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
A notably stylish film. Fionnuala Halligan, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
Michael R. Roskam certainly has cojones... unusually ambitious for a first film.
Boyd Van Hoej, VARIETY
A dark gangster thriller.
Geoffrey Macnab, THE INDEPENDENT
It is an evil story that Michaël R. Roskam tells... a esthetically and dramatically perfect.
TAGESSPIEGEL
Genuinely powerful and compelling. David Cox, FiILM4
Never less than fascinating.
Stephen Schaefer, BOSTON HERALD
[A film] aboutold and new guilt, about forgiveness and regrets...a thriller with an unusual but convincing setting .
TAGESSPIEGEL
Dark, crazy, fascinating ... Films like this make the Berlinale an event outside of the competition.
FILM DIENST
Fascinating and visually stunning ... a feast for the eyes ... even mead ows and
cows appear threatening ... KINOZEIT.DE
Michaël R. Roskam!s debut film is an enormous slap in the face. Watch out ! A big movie !
LE SOIR
For a first try, the Limburg Michaël Roskam signs a masterstroke. Mafia thriller, shakespearian drama, agricultural western, BULLHEAD is a huge schock.
LE SOIR
Michaël R. Roskam achieves a first powerful and nervous film. LA LIBRE CULTURE
Matthias Schoenaerts is simply brilliant. It!s strong, intense, but in the
meantime very moving and with humour. Without telling the end, we can say that it ends in a blaze of glory.
L!AVENIR
Matthias Schoenaerts
[Schoenaerts] takes the metaphors of his bull - headed character to the limits and is never less than believable or mesmerizing.
Natasha Senjanovic, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Michael R. Roskam's feature debut finds a gem in Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts… A stand out performance.
Natasha Senjanovic, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
A mesmerizing performance. Boyd Van Hoej, VARIETY
Celluloid Dreams takes on Panorama title Bullhead
10 February 2011 l By Geoffrey Macnab
Celluloid Dreams has snapped up international rights to Panorama entry and critical/box-
office hit Bullhead, from debut Belgian director Michael R. Roskam.
The film was released in Belgium by Kinepolis Film Distribution earlier this month to rave
reviews. It racked up close to 63,000 admissions and box office of !435,000 on its opening
weekend alone. In the process, it has eclipsed records set by other local Flemish hits such as
The Misfortunates and Dossier K. Press reactions have been very enthusiastic, with critics
calling it “a huge blow to your face” and “a major film”.
The strong buzz around the film has emerged just a few days before the film makes its
international premiere in Panorama on Sunday.
Bullhead is a crime drama set in the world of hormone smugglers where tough farmers
intimidate and bribe for illegal but profitable cattle trade. Fast rising Flemish star Matthias
Schoenaerts in the lead role of embattled cattle farmer Jacky Vanmarsenille.
The film was produced by Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film as a Belgian/Dutch co-
production with co-producers Eyeworks (Belgium), Artemis (Belgium) and Waterland Film
(The Netherlands) joining forces with Savage Film on the project. The project was supported
by the Flanders Audiovisual Fund & Flanders Image, The Dutch Film Fund, Le Centre du
cinéma de la communauté française de Belgique et des télédistributeurs Wallons,
Wallimage/Bruxellimage and the MEDIA Development program.
Bullhead: Berlin Review
5:09 PM 2/14/2011 by Natasha Senjanovic
Matthias Schoenaerts’ raging bull a standout performance in crime drama that’s light on
crime, heavy on drama.
Michael R. Roskam's feature debut finds a gem in Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who leads a strong cast.
A Flemish bovine hormone mafia movie that begins with a voiceover informing us that no
matter how hard we try to escape the past, “in the end we’re all fucked” conjures up dreary
images of interminable slaughterhouse sequences. And yet Belgian director Michael R.
Roskam’s feature debut Bullhead is an emotionally driven tale of revenge, redemption and
fate in which cows are rarely seen, much less hurt. As well as a showcase for the
exceptionally talented Matthias Schoenaerts, who seriously beefed up for the titular role.
Bullhead has the capacity to be a mainstream hit in its co-production countries (Belgium,
Holland and possibly even France), everywhere else it’s destined for an arthouse release.
Festival exposure will also help shine an international spotlight on Schoenaerts.
The Belgian actor plays Jacky Vanmarsenille, a buff, 30-year-old loner who helps his uncle
run the family meat manufacturing business, which relies on a steady supply of growth
hormone for its cattle. Everything goes south when their crooked vet suggests supplying beef
to a new client, Marc Decuyper (Sam Louwyck), who happens to be one of the biggest
hormone traffickers in Flanders. Decuyper had the cop investigating him killed and now
needs new ventures to throw the police off the scent of his previous operations.
Jacky is against the deal, especially after he sees Decuyper’s right-hand man Diederik
(Joroen Perceval). The two men have a history together that isn’t made clear until a
flashback takes us 20 years into the past, and also explains why Jacky himself takes massive
quantities of testosterone.
Bullhead begins as a mafia movie, with midnight exchanges of illegal cargo and threatening
tough guys pushing each other around, but soon becomes a search for emotional catharsis for
its two main characters, Jacky and Diederik. Various subplots, including the woman that
Jacky has longed for since childhood (Jeanne Dandoy) are stretched a little too thin to keep
the story’s many threads intertwined until the final crescendo. Yet holding it all together,
steering the film throughout (pun intended), is Schoenaerts.
The actor literally takes the metaphors of his bull-headed character to the limits and is never
less than believable or mesmerizing. His head bowed low, always ready for a fight,
Schoenaerts glares at the world from under his brow, making Jacky’s vulnerability (caused by
a horrifying event 20 years ago) as palpable as his tremendous capacity for violence. Working
from his own script, Roskam makes sure we feel for his monster.
In an all-around strong cast, Perceval also gives a commendable performance as a man whose
past weighs upon him more than his criminal present. The few French-speaking characters are
either comically thick or psychopaths — an inside joke between Belgium’s culturally warring
factions that will be lost on most international audiences.
Technical credits are good. DP Nicolas Karakatsanis’ plays with chiaroscuro lighting and
stunning landscape photography when not sticking close to the protagonist’s face, isolating
him all the more along with sound designer Benoît De Clerc’s frequent audio fade-outs. Raf Keunen’s strings-heavy score has a tendency to swell predictably during key dramatic
scenes.
Bullhead
Rundskop
(Belgium)
By Boyd van Hoeij
A KFD release of a Savage Film production, in association with Eyeworks, Artemis,
Waterland Film, with participation of KFD, Prime/Telenet, VTM, Just Bridge. (International
sales: Celluloid Dreams, Paris.) Produced by Bart Van Langendonck. Co-producers, Peter
Bouckaert, Patrick Quinet, Jan Vanderzanden. Directed, written by Michael R. Roskam.
With: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy, Barbara Sarafian, Tibo
Vandenborre, Frank Lammers, Sam Louwyck, Robin Valvekens, Baudouin Wolwertz, Erico
Salamone, Philippe Grand'Henry, Kris Cuppens, Sofie Sente. (Dutch, French dialogue)
Flemish scribe-helmer Michael R. Roskam certainly has cojones; his feature "Bullhead," a crossbreed of hormone-mafia thriller and intense character study, is
unusually ambitious for a first film. Though the story is told and edited in a way that too often obscures rather than enhances its central tragedy, much is compensated by a
career-defining, powerfully physical lead perf by Matthias Schoenaerts and ace lensing by local widescreen wiz Nicolas Karakatsanis. Already doing boffo biz at home since its
Feb. 2 release, the pic should be able to translate its Berlinale exposure into some international action, despite a thoroughly local frame of reference.
The screenplay, also by Roskam, is inspired by the famous mid-1990s murder of a Belgian
veterinarian who continued to check up on farmers regarding the suspected use of illegal
growth hormones on cattle, even after being repeatedly threatened. The people behind the
assassination were dubbed the "hormone mafia."
However, the pic uses the case only as a jumping-off point for a new tale set in the present in
provincial Limburg, the easternmost province of Dutch-speaking Belgium. The protag is the
seriously beefed-up, pent-up Jacky (Schoenaerts), who works on the family cattle farm. His
veterinarian buddy, Sam (Frank Lammers), tries to convince him to close an illegal deal with
a local meat magnate, De Kuyper (Sam Louwyck). But since a cop investigating the hormone
mafia was recently killed and the culprit hasn't yet been found, Jacky hesitates to get closer to
De Kuyper. Should De Kuyper be investigated by the police, Jacky, who has some skeletons
of his own in his closet, could come under scrutiny, too.
This storyline -- which comes complete with a police investigation (strangely arrived at) and
the generic trappings of a rural potboiler -- could have been a film along the lines of efficient
but unexceptional Belgian cop thrillers such as "Dossier K." But several leisurely and initially
disorienting flashbacks to Jacky's childhood suggest the real subject isn't the hormone mafia
at all, but Jacky himself, who's portrayed as a traumatized, flawed figure.
"Bullhead's" structure doesn't really know how to accommodate both character and narrative,
going back and forth seemingly at random, with the thriller elements getting in the way of the
piecemeal portrait of Jacky. Roskam and editor Alain Dessauvage lack the finesse of the team
behind local gold standard "The Memory of a Killer," which so cleverly combined a plot-
driven thriller with exceptional characters.
Here, there's only one fully rounded individual, with all others reduced to stock types,such as
two bumbling, French-speaking car mechanics (Erico Salamone, Philippe Grand'Henry)
responsible for getting rid of the murderer's car. Designed as comic relief, they undermine the
almost noirish tone of the rest of the film.
The main reason "Bullhead" remains watchable throughout its two-hour-plus running time is
Schoenaerts. The Flemish thesp ("My Queen Karo," "Loft") delivers a mesmerizing perf
despite the fact that Jacky, with his bursts of violent rage, vacuous eyes and animalistic
physicality, is never sympathetic. Other thesps are boxed in by their underwritten parts,
though Jeroen Perceval impresses in the second lead as a childhood friend of Jacky's.
Aside from its overreliance on slow-motion to convey the importance of certain scenes,
lensing is aces, and Raf Keunen's dirge-like score amplifies the moody atmosphere. Regional
accents are so thick they're subtitled even for the pic's domestic release.
Camera (color, widescreen), Nicolas Karakatsanis; editor, Alain Dessauvage; music, Raf
Keunen; production designer, Walter Brugmans; costume designer, Margriet Procee; sound
(Dolby Digital), Benoit De Clerck; line producer, Saskia Verboven; assistant director, Sofie
Tusschans. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Feb. 13, 2011. Running time: 128
MIN.
BERLIN 2011 PART 3: PICK OF BERLIN 2011 SO FAR
David Cox picks three of the choicest films to screen at the 61st Berlin International
Film Festival so far - On The Sly, Tomboy and Bullhead - and rounds up a selection of East Asian films
ON THE SLY Berlin has always been a good festival for films about children and young adults, thanks to
their Generations and Generation 14-plus sidebars. The programming in these sections,
although aimed at young audiences, is remarkably adventurous, and it was here that I fond
what's probably my favourite film of the festival so far. On The Sly (Pas de loup) is told
entirely in voice-over from the perspective of a four-yearold girl who's taken off to her
family's country home every weekend by parents who largely - in the girl's mind - barely
know or care if she's there. This weekend is different though, as she makes the woods around
the house the scene for a personal and private adventure in which she imagines being
abandoned and forced to live in a world that takes on a very subtle fairytale aspect.
Written and directed by Olivier Rynger and starring his daughter Wynona, the film never
lapses into cutesy precociousness (the young girl's observations are matter-of-fact rather than
particularly witty or wise) and it doesn't overdo the rapture and freedom found in the natural
world (it doesn't get much more florid than some 'magic' seeds, a farting dog and a pretty
drab-looking little fish). Apart from an unnecessarily lush score the film gets everything just
right, from the gorgeous glow of Paris on the Friday evening as the family leave town (much
to the girl's great chagrin) to the tactile quality of the secret spaces and places our woodland
adventurer makes for herself. It's not a film that called attention to itself amidst the festival
programme, but it should flower into something significant once it breathes less congested air.
TOMBOY Working in a simailr register, Tomboy is the second feature from director Celine Sciamma,
who made Film4 channel favourite Waterlilies a few years ago. Tomboy is actually a smaller
and slighter film than her debut but still as trenchant, telling the story of Laure, a pre-teen girl
who passes herself as a boy during one long summer vacation. Playing football and
swimming with a gang of boys, developing a crush on the other girl who hangs out with them
and even getting her little sister to pretend that she is her 'brother', Laure manages to keep her
secret through a number of difficult situations. Sciamma keeps a gentle tension running
throughout the film which keeps it from floating away and its focus on developing sexual
identity makes it of a piece with Waterlilies.
BULLHEAD At a different end of the spectrum completely, the Michael R. Roskan's Bullhead, from
Belgium – screening in the Panorama section - is a character-study that dwarfs On the Sly and
Tomboy in every way. Based on a case in the 1990s when a vet investigating the use of illegal
growth hormones amidst Belgian cattle traders was murdered, the film cuts through a rather
ordinary crime story of shady deals, contract killings and informants to focus on its
memorable central character. As played by Mathias Schoenaerts, Jacky is the 'Bullhead' of the
title - a brooding farmer, handyman and enforcer who lives with his parents and injects
hormones into his already hulking frame (Schoenaerts repeatedly underwent a De Niro-style
transformation to literally embody the character). The reason for Jacky's loneliness and
appearance is detailed in an extended flashback that recounts a childhood trauma, an event
which reverberates through the lives of many of the people involved in the knotty plot. The
film is like a gathering storm which hangs heavy for much of its two hour running-time,
generating a palapable sense of menace and unease before exploding in a somewhat
predictable manner. While it never quite delivers on the promise of its fascinating central
character and intriguing backdrop, spending too long building its far-from-thrilling crime-
mystery, Bullhead is genuinely powerful and compelling.
EAST ASIA Berlin is always a reliable place to catch up with the latest East Asian films, with numerous
new titles spread throughout all sections and the Market. This year, however, they've largely
been notable for being somewhat over-extended. All guilty of moving leisurely towards the
point are Ryoo Seung-wan's dramatic thriller The Unjust from South Korea; Yoshihiro
Fukagawa's novelistic murder-mystery Into the White Night (with its protracted wrap-up that
makes the climax of The Return of the King feel a bit abrupt); Iwai Shunji's Vampire (the
world's most torpid vampire film, though it has its moments); and the same-sex South Korean
love story Ashamed. Amidst all this dragging around, at least Dante Lam's Hong Kong crime-
thriller had enough chases, beatings and action to fill its two-hour-plus running-time.
Champion of this new maximalism is Zeze Takahisa's Heaven's Story, which comes in just
shy of five-hours. It maybe that it spends its time wisely and productively (though reports
suggest not) but sadly festival-time is so precious that I'll have to find out for myself another
time. After all, one could fit three short and sharp shockers from the Market into that time,
and it's some of those I'll be covering in the next report. So prepare yourself for trolls, wild
boars and an 'Atrocious' woman named Deborah...
BERLIN Day 4 – Steven Schaefer The big noise Sunday at the 61st Berlinale was the world premiere of Pina but I also caught a
monstrous study of evil down on the farm that has become Belgium’s biggest homemade hit
in years and an Irishmade cop thriller that successfully teams Brendan Gleeson and Don
Cheadle.
BULLHEAD
The news from Belgium’s big hit Bullhead is that the criminal hormone mafia injecting cows
with illegal substances to make them get fatter faster is a thriving enterprise, one that was
stopped by a large-scale undercover and surveillance police operation. The cops came onto
the criminality once murder was involved.
Who knows whether Bullhead will come to the U.S. A compelling fact-inspired drama,
Bullhead is in writer/director Michael R. Roskam’s telling very personal. In other words, you
don’t see much about cows and what happens behind barn doors as much as you watch the
cops close in as you discover the hideous aftermath of a childhood tragedy played out by two
boyhood friends. Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts, who gained 40 pounds of muscle for the role)
is a behemoth addicted to steroids and other injected substances in a way that might be a
metaphor for the cows but this hulk seems far more dangerous than any bull. Because of what
happened to him, he’s long been estranged from his childhood playmate Diederik (Jeroen
Perceval). Then Diederik turns up as part of the illegal hormone mafia but he is actually a
police informer — and also a closeted gay which makes him particularly vulnerable with the
police.
In many ways Bullhead plays like a conventional cops and crooks scenario but it is so
unusual in its settings with the distinctions in Belgium between Flemish and French speaking
locals and regions, class distinctions and its brooding, tortured antihero Jacky that it’s never
less than fascinating. Particularly fine is the way Roskam films Jacky’s tortured present the
dark world that these farmers, vets and crooks embrace and then contrasts that with the sun
soaked past that appears in extended flashbacks and fully fills in the awful dimensions of
what happened to Jacky and why the violent finale is so inevitable.