Fantastic Fest 2011

Director Michael R. Roskam live in person!

With his first feature, writer/director Michael Roskam exposes the Belgian cattle industry as a shady world controlled by gangsters and opportunists, where corruption, hormone peddling and even murder have become commonplace. Within this unlikely, yet fascinating setting, the film hones in on a profoundly troubled individual and his ongoing struggle to embody the tough guy image he so desperately projects.

The beef industry, like any other, is competitive and dependent on consistent and reliable supply. When an opportunistic veterinarian offers to bring the family-run Vanmarsenille farm together with a notorious Flemish beef trader, it seems an unmissable chance at long-term profit. However, when their new partners are implicated in a cop killing, primary enforcer Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) stalls the deal, only for an unwelcome face from his past to appear and force him to address a longburied personal demon.

Like the cattle he tends to so passionately, Jacky also nurtures a chronic hormone addiction, which serves only to further fuel his deep-seated paranoia and lingering insecurities. Jacky very much carries the emotional weight of the drama on his broad, hulking shoulders, yet with just a handful of discernible lines of dialogue, Schoenaerts delivers a riveting and emotionally challenged performance of broken masculinity that is sympathetic and scary as hell.

For all its gangster tropes, BULLHEAD is really a story of personal tragedy. Jacky’s deception reflects a much grander charade that defines the beef industry and has the potential to affect an entire nation. (James Marsh)