Hey Folks, Harry here... and with each given week the French continue to kick ass it seems. This is so unfair, I feel like I so understand the rest of the world's complaints about how they have to wait so long for the mainstream big Hollywood films to open there... but here's the big difference. At least they know they'll be seeing the damn thing... Here, what are the odds that an American Distributor will be cool enough to get the North American rights to a French Cannibal Horror Art House Flick with scenes graphic enough to turn the stomach of a guy brought up on Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD? 15 Billion To One? In the United States our distributors have nearly zero testicles when it comes to releasing fare like this. Hell, Argento can't even get distributed here anymore. This review gives me angst... I just know I'll never see it dagnamit!
Harry,
This is my first review although I wanted to comment last year when "unbreakable" was first released. I was no huge fan of the 6th sense, but I LOVED unbreakable. Dead on perfect comic book film, dead on. Probably one of the best ever. No doubt. Anyway, I wanted to tell you I thought you were right on. But I didn't.
For your own edification, I am a newly minted ex-pat. Born and bred in LA, I spent the last 12 years in san francisco and just a few months ago moved to switzerland. yes switzerland. movie capitol of the planet earth. So anyway ive been catching films left and right since i arrived. the cinematheque here is actually pretty cool, saw a rare marco ferreri film the other night and they'll be showing PRIME CUT in a couple of weeks.
i caught something tonight you might just be interested in. it's a little odd french arty horror film called "Trouble all Day". its slated to play at the 2001 London Fright Fest next month. but I saw it tonight.
"Trouble All Day" was directed by claire denis, yes the very french artsy
fartsy new new wavish director of Beau Travail which toured film festivals a
year or so ago. well, shes done something different, to say the least. It
stars beatrice dalle (night on earth) and vincent gallo! here is the story
as far as I could muster. note: spoilers galore, im gonna pretty much give
the whole thing away.
HEAVY SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!
the movie opens very frenchy like with a couple smoochin it up in a parked car somewhere in paris, but they just set the tone because they have nothing to do with the rest of the film and we never see them again, anyway, we cut to core, played by dalle. shes hanging out in a dodge ram van in this open lot somewhere when a truck driver passes by, figures shes a prostitute and stops to pick her up. cut to a little later on when this middle aged black dude on a cool bmw motorcycle rides up, notices the abandoned truck with the keys still in it and the empty ram van and goes investigating. in a nearby field he comes across the truck driver, dead and partially eaten. a little farther on he finds core, sitting sorta fetal like and covered in blood and offal. the black dude takes all this in stride, embracing core and consoling her as she mumbles incoherently. Its clear these two are in cahoots.
cut to the inside of a jet plane and there is vincent gallo who plays dr. shane brown (!), he is some kind of super bright researcher/doctor (!!) who is on honeymoon with his new wife,pat, played by sexy, wafish tricia vessey (ghost dog). Anyway, the idea is that they are on their honeymoon. but we know all is not well when dr. brown (I tell you, gallo as a superbrain doctor was a little hard to swallow, but I went with it in a giallio kind of way) makes his way to the bathroom and has this intense vision of his new wife lying drenched in blood in a blood soaked bed.
so anyway, I don't want to tell you the whole goddam movie in detail, but in a nutshell we cut back and forth between these characters until eventually we find out how it all adds up, which is like this: the black dude is doctor leo something or other, a scientist/researcher who sometime in the not so distant past was looking into some very strange medicine in the deep, dark jungles of new guinea or someplace like that. he was a brilliant guy who had assembled a crack team to help him in this research. he wrote a paper on what he was on to which most of the medical community scoffed at, except for the pharmaceutical company that the young doctor gallo, er brown, had gone to work for fresh out of med school. the company sends brown over to guinea to see what the good doctor leo is up to. we discover that besides being brilliant dr. brown is also an opportunist/capitalist and wants to take doctor leos experiments back to the states and start making some big dough with them asap. he also evidently develops some kind of crush on doctor leos wife, the mysterious core. its never made quite clear but dr brown must have gone ahead with human experiments, which doctor leo had been against, and the end product has people turned people into lusty, bloodthirsty cannibals. we know this having already been privy to core, who is obviously infected, and her bloody cravings. although we don't know exactly how or why she has become infected, we do know that doctor leo feels enough guilt over the situation (it was his work after all) that he keeps covering up for his wifes frenzied, murderous feedings. he tries to keep her under control by medicating her and locking her up in a room in their house. its also clear that gallo too is infected with whatever it is and has now returned to paris not just for his honeymoon, but to find doctor leo and some kind of cure. if he doesn't get one soon, he wont be able to control his hunger and may end up eating his pretty new wife.
so ill leave it at that. shoot me if the premise doesn't sound like a zombie knock off or something that diamond multimedia would put out on dvd for $6.99, but I swear to god, this is an art film, directed by the art film auteur, claire denis! there is definitely this ganja and hess kind of vibe going on. the film is ultimately a cautionary tale about american capitalism and how it is infecting the world and turning us into ravenous, all consuming cannibals. romero said the same thing back in 78 with dawn of the dead and so did antonia bird in 99 with ravenous (a sorely underrated film).
but let me warn you, there are two scenes in this film that are really horrific and graphic and they go on and on and on, even I found them hard to watch and I think the aforementioned dawn of the dead is one of the top 10 greatest films of all time. a softy im not. i was simply shocked by their twisted ferocity, it was one of the few times I didn't scoff at the walk outs, of which there were a few. theres just something about the way the scenes are so unflinching and the actors go at it with such licking and snorting feral gusto that you leave the theater asking yourself "jesus, what were they thinking?!" i mean gallo is creepy enough as it is without having to do what he does in this movie and although some consider dalle to be one of france's most beautiful actresses, here she spends most of her screen time covered in blood and is so drawn and hollow looking that she reminded me of one of tobe hoopers space vampires victims three quarters of the way through a lifeforce drain. the point was obviously to drive home the message that we have are becoming repellant in our all consuming desire to consume, but all i can say is if this movie had been directed by a man people would be up in arms. but it was directed by claire denis so it goes to cannes. now that i think of it, antonia bird was equally unflinching in her depiction of canibalization in ravenous, so is there some kind of theme here? are women being effected by the current state of the planet in such a way that they are expressing themselves through art in ways that renders the heretofore male way of angst expression pale and impotent by comparison? are we at the beginning of a tangible manifestation of the anger and frustration women feel at the male dominated powerstructure and its propensity for self-destruction? maybe this is all heavy handed, film quarterly kind of stuff. but food for thought just the same.
so I say check it out, if you dare. not a whole hearted recommendation you understand, it aint for the squeamish and it's a little on the arty side, but its not dull, and definitely has some interesting stuff in it. Besides, if theres anything that raises my hackles its censorship and so I say see anything you can get your eyeballs on and decide for yourself. FREEDOM OF FILM! But if I ever meet madame denis I will bring up this little oddity and have one question for her "eh, pour quois?"
-dr. oculus
ps-if i see anything else worth mentioning ill write.
