Co-written by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, and adapted from a collection of short stories by the American author Craig Davidson, Jacques Audiard's genuinely moving Rust and Bone is the story of two wounded people who form a bond based on recognition and acceptance of the others pain. Supported a lovely score by Alexandre Desplat, the film is marked by astonishing performances by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as Stephanie, a young whale trainer struggling to recover from a horrendous accident, and Matthias Schoenaerts as Ali, a brutish ex-boxer who is unable to acknowledge or express his feelings.

Rust and Bone is not a film that is easy to describe. It is raw and visceral – a punch in the gut, yet it is also a film of intelligence and sensitivity, certainly an art film but one that is also geared to a larger audience, to anyone who has suffered pain and loneliness. When we first meet Ali, he is a man with dreams of making it big in kickboxing, but who is now at his lowest point. Unemployed, he has just left Belgium with his five-year-old son Sam (Armand Verdure) to live with his sister Anna (Corinne Masiero) and her husband in Antibes, a French resort town on the Mediterranean. As Audiard describes him, "he's nothing, he's a bum, he's nobody. He looks just like the people lining up at soup kitchens."

Though Ali appears to have a good relationship wit Sam, he relates to him more like an older sibling than a responsible father, as someone able to provide unconditional love. That the film allows us to see Ali as both a man of ferocious energy and innate sensitivity, a three-dimensional human being who elicits our empathy, is a major accomplishment. Stephanie, who works as trainer of Orcas at a local marine park, is rescued by Ali from an overaggressive pursuer in the club where he is a bouncer and the two begin a tentative relationship. In a moment of honesty, Stephanie tells him that her greatest pleasure in a relationship is to be observed, "I like being watched," she says. "I like turning guys on, Get them all worked up, but then I get bored."

The nature of their relationship, however, changes forever when Stephanie is seriously injured in an accident at the pool, losing both of her legs and, with them, her reason to live. The scene when Stephanie wakes up in the hospital to discover that her legs have been amputated is one of the most gut-wrenching I've seen. After a period of recovery, Stephanie, now fitted with artificial legs, reaches out to Ali for companionship and finds him open and receptive but brutally honest. For her, he is the only person she can trust to listen to her without judgment even though, in his brutal frankness, he tells her that she is "dressed like a whore," and casually suggests that they sleep together just to see if "she can still do it."

Despite showing concern for her needs, Ali has moments of cruel insensitivity when he picks up a girl for a one-night stand even when Stephanie is with him, prompting her to ask him, "Am I a friend, a pal, a buddy like the others? If we continue, we have to do it right. I mean consideration." Ali is determined to become a professional fighter and becomes engaged in illegal activities such as street fighting and doing surveillance work for his sleazy friend Martial (Bouli Lanners),an activity that damages his relationship with Anna and forces Stephanie to be a spectator from the sidelines. Although the film is raw, there are some moments of exquisite lyricism as captured by cinematographer Stephane Fontaine, in particular, the scene where Stephanie interacts with a killer whale through a glass partition in an underwater tank.

Despite the fact that there are some contrivances and melodrama in the plot that do not mesh with the film's gritty naturalism, Rust and Bone is a stunning achievement. As Eli moves to a new level of growth, not only with Stephanie but also with Anna and Sam, a haunting picture emerges of two people whose inner strength allows a crisis in their life to turn into a spiritual awakening, an opportunity to experience a new sense of being alive. As the Greek tragedian Aeschylus expressed it, "Pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

¨What have you done with my legs? ¨

Forget about Amour, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, or A Royal Affair; the best foreign films of 2012 came from France. The first was The Intouchables, about a quadriplegic millionaire who hires the help of a young man from the projects, while Rust and Bone centers around another unlikely relationship between a killer whale trainer and a boxer. These two were my favorite foreign films by far, and I especially enjoyed this one because I am a huge fan of director Jacques Audiard who in 2009 directed the Oscar nominated A Prophet. That film was much more suspenseful as it centered on a prisoner who manages to survive inside a corrupted prison system. This time, Audiard focuses on a dramatic romantic story between two tortured souls who truly learn to live after they have suffered severe physical injuries. More than a character study, this film is a soul study as the two lead characters find healing under extremely rare circumstances. We are introduced to these characters in a very realistic manner. These people are afflicted in some way or another; they aren't your usual likable lead characters; they are deeply flawed, but we sympathize with them. Like he did in A Prophet, Audiard adapted the screenplay with the assistance of Thomas Bidegain based on the short stories from Canadian author Craig Davidson. Audiard's film was nominated for the Palm d'Or in last year's Cannes Film Festival and is really worth checking out. Some people had an issue with the ending because they thought everything fit together a little too neatly, but I thought the final act was probably the best and most satisfying part of this film. Our physical struggles and bonds can end up strengthening our tortured souls and making us better human beings.

A former boxer, Alain (Matthias Schoenaerts from Bullhead),decides to move from Belgium to the south of France where his sister, Louise (Celine Sallette),lives after he is put in charge of his young son, Sam (Armand Verdure). He isn't very responsible, so he knows his sister can help him raising his son while he finds a job. He finds one as a local bouncer at a disco where he meets Stephanie (Marion Cotillard),a professional killer whale trainer at Marineland, after escorting her back home due to a brawl. They exchange numbers but don't see each other again. Alain find a job as a security guard at a local store where he meets Martial (Bouli Lanners) who convinces him to begin fighting again. Martial runs an underground kickboxing tournament where he introduces Alain and they begin making some money off it. Meanwhile Stephanie continues her life at the marine land, until she suffers a freak accident and loses both her legs. Heavily depressed she calls Alain and the two begin to form a special bond. She begins to go out more and even joins Alain when he goes off to fight. The two begin to support each other, and despite their brokenness they begin to help each other out.

Audiard is a master at creating depth and pays close attention to these random characters that end up bonding with each other, but he couldn't have succeeded if it weren't for the two terrific lead performances from Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard. Cotillard was remarkable and should have received a nomination, and somehow Schoenaerts manages to make his character likable despite all his flaws. There is something in the way he treats Stephanie that seems to erase all his flaws and make us want him to achieve his personal goals. The actors managed to create a rather unique and authentic relationship and for me it worked really well. Every scene that at first felt unnecessary seems to have a purpose or a symbolism later on, like the way Alain looked at Stephanie's legs when he was escorting her home. Later he wins a fight he was about to lose when he catches a glimpse of Stephanie's prosthetic legs. Somehow in the midst of pain, he finds greater strength, and that is what makes this film so appealing. Everything which seemed so random at first seems to come together perfectly at the end. This is one of those films that stay with you long after the credits roll, and it is deeply touching and moving. This is one of those films that is driven by the performances and the overall narrative of the story. The visual effects of Cotillard 's legs (or lack thereof) are also pretty well done. Everything about this film makes it one you will definitely want to check out. It is real, it is raw, and it is touching.

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I'm about as far from an Audiard buff as you can get, along with Vincent Cassell he is the son of a distinguished father in French filmmaking and equally like Cassell he seems bent on tarnishing the father's name, but Marion Cotillard is something else and she was the sole draw for me. She did not disappoint. As she often is she was beyond magnificent. Talk about wounded birds, these two could start their own sanctuary. My only reservation is that Cotillard doesn't need to lose her legs to win Awards, she can do that just by being the great actress she is, witness La Mome where she actually BECAME Edith Piaf. Once again Audiard is happy to wallow in the gutter and celebrate sleaze but the two central performances are superb.