Sauvage (2018)
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Sauvage Movie Review
Sauvage is a 2018 French drama film directed by Camille Vidal-Naquet and starring Felix Maritaud in the main role. It’s an overly graphic, but undeniably effective drama.
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“You don’t want to change?
Why would I?“
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A young street hustler leads a hard life of turning tricks and taking drugs while longing for love. This is the most realistic film about prostitution that I have ever seen. It is perhaps even too realistic as it basically constitutes pornography. It wasn’t necessary to show full frontal scenes and a couple of these sequences were simply ridiculously graphic.
However, the movie isn’t sensual in any shape or form as it portrays a lot of these sex scenes in a brutally realistic, often uncomfortable and even dangerous manner. The scene with the skinheads was the moment where his life was genuinely endangered and the same goes for the pianist character who is into blood, but thankfully that part wasn’t shown on screen.
The movie piled down these moments full of misery and horror probably a bit too much, but it worked as we got to witness the full scope of the hustling job and just how dangerous, but also often sweet it can be as the crime scenes are countered with the moments of genuine emotion and affection. Portraying so many older men who are just lonely and wishing for human contact made for a genuinely touching commentary.
Felix Maritaud was incredible in this role. Camille Vidal-Naquet directed the film with so much raw power and kinetic energy, and he was the one responsible for recognizing the innate vulnerability in Maritaud, one that was necessary to play this role. Felix was too old to be playing a 22-year-old man, but it didn’t matter in the end as he sold all of the most vulnerable moments where you felt for him despite his obviously self-destructive tendencies.
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Sauvage ends with a thought-provoking sequence where Leo escapes from a great new life with a well situated man and goes to the forest. Lying in the grass, the imagery instantly evokes the film’s main metaphor of a stray dog or wild animal who cannot and won’t be tamed. It’s a polarizing ending for sure, but for me it worked as the guy was always on the frantic, wild side, so it was only natural for him to choose that life that is dangerous, but also thrilling. The editing is excellent in the movie and the various supporting players are well realized, but more dialogue was needed overall.
