Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Bullhead (2011)

Narrator: Sometimes in a man's life stuff happens that makes everyone go quiet. So quiet that no one even dares talk about it. Not to anyone, not even to themselves. Not in their head and not out loud. Not a fucking word. Cos everything has somehow got stuck. There, deep in the fields, under the trees and the leaves, year after year. Then, suddenly it all comes back. Just like that, from one day to the next. No matter how long ago it was, there will always be someone to bring it all back. Because no matter what you do or think, one thing is for sure. You're always fucked. Now, tomorrow, next week or next year, until the end of time. Fucked.

Although director Michaël R. Roskam's modern masterpiece is listed as a 2011 film since it came out in his home country of Belgium in February of 2011, it took the movie just over a full year to finally make its way to the U.S., and that makes today it's 10th anniversary for us! And since, even besides the film being a classic rumination on the state of modern masculinity, this is the movie where Mathias Schoenaerts became Matthias Schoenaerts, and for that alone it must be celebrated. 

The son of a famous actor and a costume designer Matthias had been acting since childhood (he was thirteen in his first film called Daens, which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars in 1993) and I'd even seen him in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book in a small role before Bullhead (in related news the Anthology Film Archives here in NYC is screening Black Book a few times over the next two weeks!) but Bullhead, I think we can all agree, was his big breakout role. And with good reason -- he's tremendous in it. Pun obviously intended. I mean look at him!