Cães da Noite

Vampire movies but without actually vampires, or maybe because you don't even understand this, so the movie can be described in one word, very confusing but also ridiculous. The film is very poor in plot and inventiveness and it doesn't even entertain much because even if seeing all the strange stuff of the nightlife is nice for the rest the film is ugly and above all as I already said it has a really confused plot with a common thread that is visible at the beginning but then gets lost in the chaos of the uselessness of the film. So concluding the movie is really rubbish and watching it is just a waste of time.

In Paris, Antoine (Guillaume Canet) is a ne'er-do-well, using all the possible tricks the get into private parties and night–clubs. He lives the nightlife, and sleeps nearby a swimming pool of a gym club. He uses the name of a mysterious man known as Jordan to get into a private party, where an old man gives him 100,000.00 French Francs, with the promise of another 900,000.00, is he gets any information about the location of Jordan. Antoine and his friend Étienne (Gérard Lanvin) chases Jordan through the Parisian night, and Antoine meets Jordan's sister Violaine Charlier (Asia Argento). Violaine is considered a weird person, who bites her lovers in the neck. Antoine gets involves in weird and dangerous situations while pursuing Violaine and her brother. Something is missing in `Les Morsures de L'aube' to be a great movie. It has a beautiful photography of the night of Paris, excellent soundtrack and the sexy Asia Argento. However, the story is very confused and the conclusion is very disappointing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Cães da Noite' (`Dogs of the Night')

In Antoine de Caunes' Love Bites, we find ourselves following Antoine (Guillaume Canet), a night owl who has a habit of dropping peoples' names to get into the city's best clubs.

One night, he uses the name of a mysterious and elusive fellow night owl- who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time- to crash an aristocratic gathering.

But things don't go as planned. He finds himself being whisked into the office of the party's host- a man named Von Brulow. Despite admitting that he lied to get in, Von Brulow believes that Antoine is the man he needs to find the man he's looking for- the aforementioned mysterious and elusive Jordan.

Antoine is handed half a million francs and told that he will receive another half a million when his task has been completed. In reality, he has no idea what is going on, or what he's going to do...but he knows that he is not in a position to decline the "job" offer...and it does pay well.

With only his small time hustler friend Etienne to rely upon for help (and even then, only when it is in his self interest), Antoine finds himself thrust into the underground world of dive bars, dog fighting, and fetish clubs....as he goes in search of the mythological Jordan.

More a conman than a PI, Antoine does manage to uncover some information about the man. Mainly, that he has a sister named Violaine (Asia Argento). And that, together, they may or may not be two of the last remaining Vampires- whose father demanded they bare a child together upon his deathbed, to ensure the survival of the race and return of their powers.

He learns, however, that Violaine denied her father's dying request and has rejected the advances from her brother.

When the two eventually meet, Antoine instantly becomes infatuated by her deviant, lustful beauty. Though, it's unclear whether she feels the same way, or is just manipulating him for her own ends.

As he delves deeper and deeper into this world- driven, now, by an insatiable curiosity- things become darker, as he gets closer to the truth...or possibly just death.

You'll have to watch to see how it plays out.

All-in-all this is an entertaining little vampire flick, with a sexy lingerie clad Asia Argento, that manages to hold your attention throughout. It's by no means one of the best vampire films of all time or anything, but it's made well and certainly worth a watch. 6 out of 10.

A nightclub gadfly (Guillame Canet) sneaks into a private party by claiming to know a guy named "Jordan". The host catches him and enlists his aid in finding this guy "Jordan", which he agrees to for some reason. After a series of misadventures that take up nearly half the movie he finds "Jordan" and his sexy sister "Violaine" (Asia Argento), and they turn out to be some kind of vampires. They have been making these kind of erotic vampire movies both in Europe and the US for forty years now, and they're really getting to be kind of old hat. This one is also kind of annoying in that it is very modern-day French (i.e. very glossy and derivative of Hollywood). Jean Rollin was doing this much better thirty or forty years ago.

It does have a couple of good points though. Asia Argento is absolutely smokin'-ass hot. She has a very memorable scene where she picks the protagonist up in a club and takes him home. She goes to fix him a drink, which she drugs, and comes back naked from the waist down (her pants mysteriously MIA). Moments later they're in bed where in his drugged state he hallucinates that she is THREE bottomless vampire girls all sucking on him (and not just in the vampiric sense!). The guy also has a wife(?) who is a lounge club singer. At one point she sings what appears to be a French lounge-club version of the great Willie Nelson song "The Night Life" (i.e. "The night life ain't no good life"/"But it's my life"). I'm not sure this is actually the Willie Nelson song, since it's in French, but if not, he should probably sue.

But if I sound a little uncertain of some things, it's because I didn't really understand French dialogue very well, but perhaps I should have tried more because the English subtitles were either generated by a malfunctioning computer translation program or written by someone who had no grasp on the English language. They're often unintentionally funny (such as when they try to translate bizarre French idioms directly into English), but mostly they're just distracting. I don't know if all of this adds up to a recommendation or a pan, but you can decide for yourself I guess.

This is a splendidly produced, directed, acted and scripted modern vampiresque tale carved into the underbelly of raucous French night life. There's plenty of glitter, pizzazz and charm mixed with a heaping dose of grit, filth and decadence that adds a unique realism to a captivating mystery of a ne'er-do-well (the "innocent" Antoine played by Guillaume Canet) thrust into a quest for the enigmatic Jordan "the lord of the night" and his alluring goth girlfriend/sister Violaine (sexy erotic-horror vixen Asia Argento). The audience follows the young Antoine on his spiral downward into nether regions of disturbing violence and despair, but he presses onward, transfixed by the memory of his recent collision with Violaine that left him physically empty and weak but spiritually rejuvenated. With newfound purpose and desire, he braves life-threatening dangers to peel away the fragile skin of ambiguity and uncover the truth about Violaine and the rumors of vampirism. This film diverts from the trappings of Anne Rice influenced romanticism and repetitive classical vampire motifs without resorting to modern-day drug metaphor. This film is better compared to Larry Fessenden's 1997 HABIT than any other recent vampire film. It is an intriguing mixture of the urban (ie. Fessenden's Manhattan), yet one cannot escape the thought that it draws on the somewhat surreal French vampire films of Jean Rollin. It is visibly quirky and riddled with moments of dark humor that serves to undercut some of the more disturbing (and mildly gory) scenes, but it is no comedy. It's unique and interesting throughout - and the mystery is fun to watch unfold.