Here we have a French horror film, directed by Claire Denis. I found this film by chance and decided to check it out for no other reason than curiosity. Most of the films I watch I've either known about for years or discovered through a "paper trail" as it were. It's films like Trouble Every Day that sap all the energy out of me when writing a review
I'm teetering very slowly on the edge of exclusively reviewing older films rather than traipsing through a land of the absolute garbage that's been released in the past decade. It's a good thing this came out 9 years ago, otherwise the statement I made about French cinema in a recent review would be rendered useless.
The synopsis of the film is about a recently married American couple who are honey-mooning in Paris. The husband is stricken with a strange sexual desire to inflict damage during intimacy. The affects, on a more grand scale, mirror those of cannibalistic tendencies. He seeks treatment from an expert in the field that may be of use to him; the doctor's wife also suffers from this strange desire but on a more severe level.
Horror films within the last decade have tried so desperately to create their own niche in the market, and more often than not, end up creating a sub-genre of try-too-hards. Speaking on a more personal level, I am an artist. I am appreciative of various mediums and I can respect a film's artistic vision if it actually has one. There has to be some level of structure involved on all fronts, otherwise the talent pool becomes cluttered with a mass of idiots who like to pretend they're something they aren't. I don't know Claire Denis as a human being face to face but it's apparent that the message of her film is obscure and "artistic" just for the sake of being that way; there are few things on this planet that annoy me greater than that.
The people that praised this film for its direction are probably the same people that live in a delusional fairyland where untalented directors can release vomit for wholesale and be praised for it simultaneously. This one is for the birds. If you'd like to watch a film that doesn't pretend to be sophisticated, watch 1984's The Company of Wolves – a film that utilizes terrific use of symbolism as a result of REAL talent – not slapdash ridiculousness produced by a team of wannabe's.
The synopsis of the film is about a recently married American couple who are honey-mooning in Paris. The husband is stricken with a strange sexual desire to inflict damage during intimacy. The affects, on a more grand scale, mirror those of cannibalistic tendencies. He seeks treatment from an expert in the field that may be of use to him; the doctor's wife also suffers from this strange desire but on a more severe level.
Horror films within the last decade have tried so desperately to create their own niche in the market, and more often than not, end up creating a sub-genre of try-too-hards. Speaking on a more personal level, I am an artist. I am appreciative of various mediums and I can respect a film's artistic vision if it actually has one. There has to be some level of structure involved on all fronts, otherwise the talent pool becomes cluttered with a mass of idiots who like to pretend they're something they aren't. I don't know Claire Denis as a human being face to face but it's apparent that the message of her film is obscure and "artistic" just for the sake of being that way; there are few things on this planet that annoy me greater than that.
The people that praised this film for its direction are probably the same people that live in a delusional fairyland where untalented directors can release vomit for wholesale and be praised for it simultaneously. This one is for the birds. If you'd like to watch a film that doesn't pretend to be sophisticated, watch 1984's The Company of Wolves – a film that utilizes terrific use of symbolism as a result of REAL talent – not slapdash ridiculousness produced by a team of wannabe's.