Bastards by Claire Denis got me thinking about children and fate.
Let’s start by agreeing that a small child does not chose either her parents or the situations her parents put her in. I don’t know at what point a young person becomes fully responsible for the choices she makes in life, but it’s incremental, it takes a while, and still to some extent depends on the parents. How much of the period of one’s life that is ruled by fate inform the choices one makes in the future? And if that period when one did not have a choice effects the choices one makes down the line, well then to what extent are choices really choices?
Bastards is a gothic, Faulknerian family drama that glides along on a luscious and spooky soundtrack by the Tindersticks. There are two children in this film. One is an eight year old boy. He lives with his mom, played by Chiara Mastroianni, who is essentially “kept” by an older, reptilian businessman who happens to be her husband and the boy’s father. The other child in the film is actually a young woman presumably old enough to be making her own choices. Unfortunately she’s the daughter of two disturbed human beings. Essentially the sad story that comes together over the course of the film is that the young woman has been involved in a kind of sexual adventure with her father and the reptilian business man. Part of the deal involved the woman being penetrated with corn cobs by her dad while the businessman and a hidden camera watched. Furthermore, it seems her the mother was somewhat complicit in this arrangement, as both she and her husband were involved in shady business dealings with the businessman in order to salvage the family shoe business. The details of the arrangement aren’t explained. How exactly they all drifted into this debauchery and how the daughter ended up up complying with the corn cobs is unclear. But clearly that the parents didn’t have their daughter’s best interest in mind.
Ambiguity permeates the film. The eight year old boy and his mom seem to have a decent life together and one does sense a mutual affection between them. But there is not much there there. The mom is gorgeous (she is Chiara Mastroianni, after all) but nondescript. Little is revealed about her other than her cigarette habit. Though her apartment is enormous there is nothing in it. Her reptilian businessman husband drops in from time to time for a hand job but he doesn’t live with them. However, this arrangement seems to work for all of them. She begins a casual affair with a neighbor. He happens to be the uncle of the young woman. And it seems that he starts the liaison from a position of revenge, as he believes the reptilian businessman is responsible the death of his brother-in-law and the corruption of his niece.
Unfortunately the arrangement ends badly for all. When the businessman finds out about the affair he steals his son away, not because he is mad about the affair, but because he doesn’t want his son to be exposed to someone from such a “disgusting family”. This is laughable and disturbing considering the revelations of the corn cobs.
In the end this boy witnesses his mother shoot her neighbor/lover in front of his father. It’s a choice she makes, it seems, to get her son back. And it is surprising because of the two her husband seems to be a better candidate for the bullet. And what of the boy? He is at mercy of his parents’ choices, he is taken away from his mother by his father, he watches his mother murder her lover. One wonders if down the line he may go in a similarly dark direction as the young woman with whom he shares a peripheral connection. Denis doesn’t come out and explain anything. The ambiguity if this film is an invitation to unsettling interpretations. For example, for me, one of the most disturbing moments in the film is in a scene in which the businessman, after spiriting his son away on a yacht, looks at his son with a creepy sense of propriety just before snapping a picture of him.