Bullhead (Saturday, February 18, 2012) (13)

I'm not really convinced that the story told in Michael Roskam's film Bullhead is at all scientifically possible, but it's a pretty enjoyable one, if a bit silly. The film opens with Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts), an absolute hulk of a Belgian man, posing naked in the mirror after a shower. He has muscles everywhere. He then goes to a mini-fridge and gets vials of some drug and takes out a syringe. We then jump to an exchange between a group of Flemish cattlemen talking about how the cops are arresting some of their brethren who use hormones to increase the size of their cows.

We then see a flashback to how when Jacky was a kid his father bought growth hormone for his cattle. One day, the daughter of the hormone dealer caught Jacky's eye and before he could make a move on her, her brother, chased Jacky away and ended up effectively castrating him with rocks (ouch!). It seems that from that point on, Jacky was injected with growth hormone (human, we have to assume, rather than bovine) until he got to be the enormous size he is in the present.

Now, years later, the girl who once interested Jacky as a kid is his main fascination. He begins to stalk her (somehow she doesn't know who he is) and as the cops begin to figure out that he's involved in a massive cow doping cartel, the woman finds out who he is as well.

One interesting aspect to the story is that the setting is some place right on the Flemish and Wallonian border and we see clearly that the two peoples hate each other. Only a few of the Flemish speak French and only a few of the Walloons speak Flemish (Jacky is Flemish and his lady obsession is Walloon). I feel like we don't see this schism in film very frequently and it's interesting. Both parts make the whole, but they don't trust and resent each other. This brings up a clever link between the split duality of Belgium and, of course, the duality of testicles (ooof - that's a bit silly, isn't it?).

There is a great Belgian look to the film that I love. It has the stark reality of blues, grays and browns that have become synonymous with other Belgian filmmakers, like the Dardenne brothers, or the blessed Chantal Akerman. I guess it's this natural quality that is most compelling about the film, but also it's biggest problem.

In the end, the film is a rather over-the-top light action flick, certainly with more ennui and more pathos. Many details of the story fall apart because they seem like deus-ex-machina devices rather than plausible elements (such as how Jacky's childhood bully is now in a hospital mostly paralyzed and unable to speak due to an accident or how the grown woman doesn't know who Jacky is). The story begins to fray at the edges with all these silly parts.

I like this film, but I admit it has some problems. It's a pretty good story and the idea of a man-giant being ball-less and miserable because he's less of a man is interesting. Perhaps the bovine and human hormone link is too neat and tidy for me. Still, it's well made and has some compelling moments.

Stars: 3 of 4