Eric Lavallée

Anyone who knows the Claire Denis' filmography would most certainly know the faces of Alex Descas and Gregoire Colin (featured in the pic above). Descas' work with Denis dates back to 1990's S'en fout la mort, and the facially gifted Colin might have had more to work with in Nénette et Boni (1996), Beau Travail (1999) and L'intrus (2004), but in the handful of scenes we do find him in for 35 Rhums, Colin makes his presence known by simply working with a character that doesn't have much of an elaborate back-story. In his fifth Claire Denis film, you could describe his subtle character as a mystery man and though at some point he does indeed get rid of a carcass – it's far from what one might think. Descas delicately plays a man headed into the unknown of retirement - in typical Denis fashion.

I still remember the range of emotions Tom Wilkinson tapped into for his lead perf in Todd Field's In the Bedroom -- and it's his pinch hitting stint in Michael Clayton that reminded cinephiles just has good the Brit thesp is. Tony Gilroy naturally found a spot for him in the corporate spy comedy Duplicity and when the cat and mouse game between Owen and Roberts felt contrived, we could count on the actor to indulge in his own game of charades. Loved the intro, slo-mo confrontation between Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti which I relate to those epic battles between mountain rams we find on the nature channel.

Gray placed Phoenix in a far more venerable role in their third time out. After The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007), the 2008 Cannes title that got release early 2009 Two Lovers saw Phoenix in his own Betty and Veronica dilemma.

It was Cristian Mungiu who first introduced us to the clinic cold Vlad Ivanov in 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days -- perhaps the role that convinced other filmmakers to cast the Romanian actor in his expanded repertoire of other films (The Concert, Police, Adjective and The Whistleblower). The two paired together in Mungiu's Tales From the Golden Age - oddly, I'm not entirely sure if Mungiu actually directed the actor - as the portmanteau film doesn't specify who directed what or who directed The Legend of the Chicken Driver.

In the end the hodgepodge of work actually serves us very well—I like to think that the tone of our movie is completely singular. Armless has this weird dry and dark humor that is unsettling and enticing at the same time; that tone is one of the more interesting and successful aspects of the movie.