Trouble Every Day

This movie is up until now the dullest and most boring movie of the Stockholm Film Festival. It is not touching, not moving, not repulsive, not anything, just boring. Slow and completely void of story and character development, it leaves me feeling empty. Lesson for the movie-makers: Just throwing in some blood and unnecessary rape doesn't take away that this is 100 minutes of nothing.

Crap I say.

Another word (to me) for pretentious could be boring, or maybe dull, because when a film tries too hard to have hidden depths sometimes it just plunges deep into the abyss. This is where Trouble Every Day dwells.

I heard about the movie while reading a horror encyclopedia somewhere so I thought I'd track it down. I'm no newbie when it comes to challenging horror cinema and I actively seek out things which my local multiplex wouldn't show. I also don't mind if a film moves relatively slowly, but it takes a few morsels of plot along the way to smoulder my interest, Trouble Every Day fails to keep that interest and it's almost as if the director thought he could pad out 90% of the film with any dreary old shots because we wanted to see the reported shocking ending. I'm afraid not though.

When it finally gets to the good stuff, its a damp squib. So much more could have been done with the entire premise, much like Let The Right One In. The (little) gore is not really that shocking and at times you don't even know what's going on. All in all, it's just not that good of a film and it's no great wonder it doesn't get much recognition. I would have given it a 2 but I liked the theme music so a generous 3 then.

Although there are a few scenes that are very, very striking (the gore and the sexuality), the movie just left me wondering "what was this all about?". There are no explanations for any of the events that take place and we never get any insight into the characters. It was as if I was observing a couple of very disturbed people but I was not allowed to ask questions and no information is available. I was disappointed.

"Trouble Every Day" is, for me, one of the most unfairly maligned films of recent times. Surely it is the admittedly confronting content that has people dismissing this near-brilliant meditation on carnal desire, blood lust and homicidal tendencies, and not the filmmaking. There is something gratuitous about the scenes of explicit violence in "Trouble Every Day" but I see no reason why this is grounds to reject the film outright. I think everything else works pretty well from the elliptical narrative that never lets on more than it needs, the stripped and reserved performances, the suggestive camera work and the beautiful, atmospheric photography. The sense of menace created by the guttural aural track and the bloody violence suggest an unusual link between art-film and horror that is reminiscent of Cronenberg and Ferrara. One of the more compelling films I've seen in recent times.

Vincent Gallo ... I should have known this would not be anything remotely "normal". And while the violence may borderline and vary to some (between ridiculous and scary), we do not get to see too much of certain things. Still there is an unease about this. Because it dares to show us glimpses of things ... especially sexuality and the insatiable hunger ... which I'm quite certain is a metaphor. For a lot of things.

As another reviewer has already stated, the movie is about sexuality and the gender roles. Or at least can be viewed as such. You can see beyond the horror and try to figure certain things out yourself. Gallo plays it straight ... and while there is not much dialog ... certain things are being repeated - I'm ok ... I'm ok. As if the characters are trying to convince themselves of what they are saying. Which is not really working - or fooling anyone for that matter.

There will be blood and there will be mayhem ... and there will be unsatisfied conclusions ... and some that may not even be considered a conclusion. A weird movie that for some reason was playing at a cinema the other day ... I reckon they knew I'd go and watch it anyway ... but I was not alone. A couple watched this with me ... and while we didn't know each other (and still don't), they shared their candy with me - not an innuendo. Although I am not ruling out or saying ... well anything. Anyway that anecdote aside that has nothing to do with the movie, it is as weird an encounter and experience as the movie itself was ...