Actor Tahar Rahim is making waves internationally as an actor. His latest, the controversial drama “Love and Bruises“—previously known under the more provocative title “Bitch“—from Chinese director Lou Ye should cement his rising rep as a star to watch.
The handsome actor gave an acclaimed, eye-opening performance that caught the film world’s attention in the Oscar-nominated French drama “A Prophet“ (2009) by Jacques Audiard.
Rahim, 30, comes from French-Algerian stock. As a student, he studied sports and computer sciences before boredom led him to acting and filmmaking. A facility for language and dialects has served him well in “The Prophet” and other films, such as the action film “The Eagle” (2011), opposite Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell.
Trade paper “Variety” calls “Love and Bruises” a “raw, jagged, in-your-face study of the self-destructive bond between two lost souls” that features “rough, feral sex” and a “modish handheld aesthetic.”
ScreenDaily.com was more measured in its praise, noting the intense relationship between characters played by Rahim and model-actress Corrine Yam makes for an “absorbing, intriguing and sometimes hard film to watch, but at least it is trying to be honest about the nature of certain relationships where ‘love’ and ‘bruises’ have to exist alongside each other.”
They note Rahim is “impressive in a role that is rather more one-note though he manages the rare feat of making [his character] sympathetic at times.”
“I like his cinematic identity,” Rahim said of his director in a “New York Times“ story earlier this year. “Every love story is the same, in each movie, but in this case it was different. There is love, there is brutality, there is sex, there is misunderstanding, like in life, and finally this is the encounter between the Far East and Europe. So I knew I would really discover something there.”
“Love and Bruises” has been making the festival circuit and recently played the 68th annual Venice International Film Festival. At post time, no U.S. distributor had stepped up to the plate.
Rahim will next be seen in “Black Gold,” an epic adventure from director Jean-Jacques Annaud that costars Antonio Banderas and Frieda Pinto.
TRIVIA: A short documentary titled “Tahar, student” by Cyril Mennegun chronicled his experience with film school and aired on French TV in 2006.
CLICK HERE for the “New York Times” story.