Cannibal Love - Mangiata viva

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.

Although I liked Claire Denis' "Trouble Every Day" even more on this second viewing, I can fully understand why many hate the film. It is not a film one enjoys (except in a manner appreciative of it as art), and offers a narrative with little closure and sparse plot. It is also moody, brilliantly photographed by Agnes Godard, excellently-acted, and genuinely unsettling, and not just for the much-talked about gore (which takes up around five or so minutes of the film over two scenes).

The film's thin plot is based around dark scientific secrets and is more than a little reminiscent of one of David Cronenberg's sexually-charged horror films, but Denis' approach is completely different. The film lacks dialogue for most of its scenes, but the visuals tell the story far better than dialogue could anyway. We don't find out very much about these experiments, but we don't need to; the film is about the characters, especially Shane (played brilliantly by Vincent Gallo), and the film is ultimately more about Shane's struggle with his condition and his love for his wife (girlfriend? Not that it really matters...) than about the general plot or the gore.

"Trouble Every Day" (Zappa reference!) is certainly graphic, but only when it needs to be. There are two scenes of gore, both far from the worst anybody well-acquainted with horror films has seen in terms of the actual on-screen violence, but it is testament to Denis' great skill as director and the actors' great conviction that they feel so hard to watch, in particular the latter scene.

There have been films with more or less similar subject matter made before, but most of them are harmed by a cynical, harsh approach to their subjects. Denis' approach to this film is far more human, even towards what some might not hesitate to call monsters. The film is quiet, ponderous, and sensitive (so is the brilliant score by Tindersticks). The brilliant photography and Denis' wonderful mise-en-scène capture this warm feel very well, especially during the sex scene between Shane and his wife .

The critics who almost unanimously lambasted the film in 2001 raise some good points. Perhaps "Trouble Every Day" is under-written, although I enjoyed the fact that the film let me piece things together rather than tell me precisely what was going on. Perhaps the film has less depth than it thinks it does. But the real question is whether or not that keeps "Trouble Every Day" from being a triumph of atmosphere and style, and a haunting examination of gender roles and human sexuality? As far as I'm concerned, it certainly does not.

"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 ...

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.