"Islands" was the short, (23 minutes), that Yann Gonzalez made before "Knife+Heart" and is in many ways its perfect companion piece, (it could have been of one the film's 'Knife+Heart's' Anne might have produced and there are moments here that you feel Gonzalez incorporated into the later film). Fairly explicit sex and horror are again the order of the day but this is no ordinary porn movie. It's highly erotic but also hugely stylish and really rather disturbing. For Gonzalez, sex is always equated with death and violent death at that; the phallus is always a knife and sperm and blood are much the same. Had I seen this before "Knife+Heart" I would have known Gonzalez had a masterpiece waiting in the wings. Seeing it now I can safely say that both the cinema of eroticism and the cinema of horror have found a new master.
Review of Islands
