Love Lies Bleeding

 

Director Rose Glass

Glass with Kristen Stewart

Katie O'Brian, Glass, and Stewart

LOVE LIES BLEEDING                  B-                                                                                    Great Britain  USA  (104 mi)  2024  ‘Scope  d: Rose Glass

This is like a Marvel comic B-movie that flaunts its neo-noir mentality, a throwback to a golden age of 90’s dark psychological crime thrillers with sex and violence at the heart of its beating pulse, like Ridley Scott’s THELMA AND LOUISE (1991), Carl Franklin’s One False Move (1992), the Wachowski sister’s lesbian romance Bound (1996), and perhaps most especially David Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY (1997), a dreamlike action thriller with surreal vibes that this occasionally resembles, right down to the lines of the highway passing in the dark, and while it thrives on a seething realism of gun culture that can be brutal, with plenty of sinister, repressed impulses of sexual obsession and revenge, the kicker is it ventures into the surreal and fantastical at the end, which is likely to polarize viewers.  Glass initially studied film and video at the London College of Communication where she worked as a runner on film sets for music videos and commercials, and was then accepted at the National Film and Television School, with notable alumni Lynne Ramsay and Terrence Davies, graduating in 2014, heavily influenced by David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, and David Cronenberg, where she was selected by Bong Joon-Ho as one of his 20 directors to watch for in the 2020’s in BFI Sight and Sound, Bong Joon Ho's 20 upcoming directors for the 2020s - BFI.  Teaming up with producers Oliver Kassman and Andrea Cornwell, co-writing with former NFTS grad Weronika Tofilska, this film is set in an early 1990’s Southwestern setting, shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Ben Fordesman, who also shot the director’s initial feature SAINT MAUD (2019), a British horror film that raised plenty of eyebrows with its morbid subject matter, but according to Writer/director Rose Glass: “women love messed up stuff.”  That could be the underlying theme of this movie, with a pulsating electronic synth-heavy score by Clint Mansell, known for his collaboration with Aronofsky, as the camera zooms in on a seedy gym in the middle of nowhere that looks dark and depressing, expressing the unrelenting dreariness of these dead-end lives, with suggestions of a little girl on girl action, with the clingy, flirtatious airhead Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov, Mikhail’s daughter) coming on strong to the reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart, who keeps finding these quirky roles that she completely inhabits, apparently informing the director, “Who the hell else is going to play this role?”), who seems more concerned with the grim realities of the job, most of which are unpleasant, like cleaning the perpetually clogged toilets, Love Lies Bleeding | Official Preview HD | A24 YouTube (4:50).  Immediately we’re reeled into this visually striking film aesthetic of small town Americana with foreboding dark undertones that suggest something threatening lies ahead, featuring a terrific sound design, where the ominous mood of horror feels derived from such classics as Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (Les Diaboliques) (1955), and the neo-noir thrillers of Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) and the Coen brother’s Blood Simple (1984).

In this small community where not much ever happens, what plays out is like an old-time western as a stranger rolls into town, yet the gender is inverted as the swaggering stranger walking into her gym is a pumped-up young female bodybuilder named Jackie (Katie O’Brian, a martial arts devotee and former professional bodybuilder).  The obsessional attraction is instant, with Jackie’s muscular build and sweaty workout routine capturing the eye of Lou, who can’t take her eyes off her, just waiting for a chance to talk to her, closing up early when a guy starts hitting on her, but ends up breaking a up a fight between Jackie and a bulked-up guy who likes pushing people around, but Jackie pushes back, getting openly confrontational before Lou steps in, taking Jackie aside as she closes the joint.  Offering her free steroid injections, something illegal to have or distribute without a license, yet readily available from one of the black market distributors, she gives her a shot in the butt, which starts the ball rolling.  Before you know it, they’re grabbing at each other on the floor mats before hopping into bed, where Jackie ends up staying with Lou, as she’s just a drifter passing through on her way to Vegas for a bodybuilding tournament, yet it’s love at first sight morphed into each thinking the other is their ticket out of there, but their combustible emotions become a self-destructive nightmare.  Weirdness is associated with those continuing injections, as they create a nirvana-like blissful mindset where you feel invincible, something Jackie describes as like Popeye eating a can of spinach, where suddenly her muscles start bulging in a comically exaggerated Hulk-like way, adding an element of the surreal to much of the dreamlike imagery that unfolds in a visual parallel to David Lynch.  We discover Lou comes from a dysfunctional family, where her psychopathic father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris with ridiculously long hair extensions), owns the gym and a local shooting range, and appears to be a crime boss, an arms dealer that the FBI is watching very closely, with his own dirty cop on the payroll working for him, Officer Mike (David DeLao), having alienated his daughter to the point she refuses to talk to him, wanting nothing more to do with him, yet they’re quickly brought back together into the same universe, while her sister Beth (Jena Malone) is the punching bag of her abusive husband JJ (Dave Franco), yet refuses to press charges, as she’s under the delusional impression this is love.  Lou’s protective closeness to her sister is what’s keeping her there, so when he puts her in the hospital, lying unconscious, her face puffed up and on life support, Lou grows so infuriated with JJ that she really wants to kill him, where that paralyzing rage is transferred to Jackie, who feels compelled to act in ways Lou wouldn’t, and in the process exposes the darker, buried secrets of society where hidden evils are lurking under a façade of normalcy.  This is a European director’s unambiguous portrait of an America saturated with guns, marked by bloodshed, and characterized by lawlessness. 

Echoing the solitude of characters found in Lynch films, the film goes off the rails a bit, using extreme close-ups, showing love intertwined with violence, unafraid to push the boundaries of body horror, growing ugly and brutally grotesque, exploring deeper themes of identity and metamorphosis, where the imagery alone becomes a metaphor for the underlying cruelty emanating from this family, with visions of a demon-like Lou Sr. bathed in a stark red light motif grinning diabolically, which has the effect of engulfing scenes with an intense and ominous atmosphere.  It veers out in multiple directions, with inexplicable murders, betrayals, cover-ups, and tension mounting from all the built-up mayhem associated with things going overwhelmingly wrong, where the plot feels convoluted and the unsympathetic characters are basically unrelatable, despite stellar performances, yet there are moments of wicked humor.  Jackie tries to do the right thing, but doesn’t know the family history, or how dangerous it is to swim in the crime-infested waters.  All she really wants to do is head to Vegas for the competition, but gets bogged down by this mess, Love Lies Bleeding Exclusive Movie Clip - More Powerful ... YouTube (1:26).  As if in response, she starts injecting herself with larger doses, kind of losing her head in the process, growing more wildly out of control, delving into psychedelic Aronofsky territory, uncovering strange and obscure aspects of human nature.  Meanwhile, the more close-to-the-vest Lou finds herself in survival mode, continually having to clean up the messes left behind from her partner’s impulsive behavior, which is well-intentioned, but bonkers, turning this into a kind of mind-fuck of a movie.  The bodybuilding tournament goes off as expected, with Jackie showing up to participate, and while she fits right in as one of the stand-outs, it soon becomes clear that things have gone horribly wrong, with sound distortions and an altered mindset, becoming a hallucinogenic, out-of-body experience, complete with quick cutting flashback sequences, where she ends up in jail for assault, but that’s only the beginning of a deranged, nightmarish path of disorientation and confusion, representing an abstract emotional perspective, complete with hidden interpersonal dynamics that suddenly become clear, creating an adrenaline-laced bloodbath that is typically the domain of men in movies.  Reminiscent of Amanda Kramer’s deliriously stylized Please Baby Please (2022), a kind of subterranean, neon-lit fever dream, with its gaudy costumes and art direction, billed as a “genderqueer extravaganza,” this gets into the psychological anguish surrounding homophobia, as you tend to internalize all that projected hatred.  At different points in the film both Lou and Jackie think they are monsters, having been called that by their own parents, getting inside their heads, bringing past traumas into the present, creating this whirlwind of anxiety and mixed emotions, capturing a sense of the eerie and the foreboding, yet there’s nothing subtle about the audacious conclusion, mixing hard corps realism with heavy doses of fantasy, representing a transformation of love, moving from stylish pulp to camp.  Unafraid to wear her influences on her sleeve, becoming both an homage and a distinctly unique piece of cinema, this is not for the faint of heart, with an exaggerated, over-the-top strangeness that is not for everyone, as the film revels in its own graphic violence, with some shocking, gory moments that come out of nowhere, balancing elements of sex, romance, horror, and action sequences, with Glass ensuring the gruesome aspects of the movie are served without overpowering the theme of queer romance and sexual desire, where despite all odds, their lives merge together in an ode to reckless devotion.     

The Influences of LOVE LIES BLEEDING YouTube (11:14)

Personal Shopper

Swedish painter Hilma af Klint

 

Director Olivier Assayas at Cannes

 

PERSONAL SHOPPER                    B+                  

France  Germany  (105 mi)  2016  ‘Scope  d:  Olivier Assayas           Official site

It’s important to remember that Assayas was a painter before he became a filmmaker, where the remarkable fluidity of his film style may be attributed to his ability to visualize ahead of time the exact look he wants onscreen, where a rush of images resemble an improvisatory style of painting, perhaps accentuating the spontaneity of the moment, using a contemplative, stream-of-conscious narrative that comprises a radically modernist film style, at times somber and reflective, while at other times feeling like an assault to the senses.  Here he resorts to an old-fashioned, haunted house genre, conjuring up dead spirits and ghosts from the past, which at times is amusing, like an homage to Hitchcock, a filmmaker having fun and playing with the art of his craft, yet also delves into the horror genre, where fear and existential angst create an absorbing interior dread.  At the center of the picture, and in nearly every shot, is the young protagonist Maureen (Kristen Stewart, who seems to inhabit the role), an American in Paris, a psychic medium who believes she is capable of communicating with a spirit world.  Some in the audience will giggle, constantly whisper amongst themselves, and simply never get past this point, as they will find the premise too preposterous, too far-fetched and unbelievable, especially the use of cheesy CGI effects in an otherwise realistic film.  While the film was booed at Cannes, this is largely because a prominent French filmmaker made a film starring a tabloid celebrated American actress where the predominate language spoken is English, yet others, to be sure, are among this camp of ardent disbelievers.  Assayas, however, has always been on the cutting edge of new technology, prominently featuring an iPhone as a secondary character, where the narrative is advanced by rapid text conversations from someone identified as “Unknown,” which gives the film something instantly recognizable, while also adding an element of mystery and intrigue.  Using a film-within-a-film device, Maureen becomes riveted by watching a documentary piece on her phone about Swedish abstract painter Hilma af Klint (1862 – 1944), (Hilma af Klint - A Pioneer of Abstraction (eng.sub) - YouTube, 22:01), who claimed to be a clairvoyant, who was told by spirit voices to paint “on the astral plane,” whose work is derived from mysticism and the awareness of higher levels of consciousness, an aspect that is currently being marginalized in an increasingly materialistic world.  Af Klint is another psychic believer who conducted séances with other artists, whose occult-inspired paintings were among the first representations of abstract art, so she refused to publicly show these paintings during her lifetime, knowing they would not be understood, as they were believed to be decades before their time, released twenty years after her death, as stipulated by her will, where in an interesting parallel, the creativity behind these paintings was inspired by “unknown” forces.  

Like the last Assayas film, 2014 Top Ten List #3 Clouds of Sils Maria, the director’s first collaboration with Stewart, she plays another disaffected assistant to an overbearing star.  While she played a secondary role in the earlier film, here she is the centerpiece, where we see everything through her eyes.  While the film is comprised with on-the-street, cinéma vérité moments of Kristen Stewart zipping around Paris and London on a moped picking out ultra chic designer outfits and Cartier jewelry for an haut couture fashion model star who is rarely ever seen, Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten), whose domineering reputation precedes her, where the selfish conceits of her narcissistic boss are unnerving, making her a pain to work for, placing her in a fully subservient and demeaning role, yet the idea of having the freedom to work with designers, choosing their latest creations, and having them at your beck and call, as her boss is too busy and too recognizable to perform these duties herself, offers a kind of titillating luxury most of us will never know, flittering in and out of the high life, dropping off accessories, having access to often empty upscale apartments where she’s free to imagine herself in a parallel existence leading a life of pampered indulgence.  But the film is not about class difference, though in stark contrast, Maureen runs around in jeans, T-shirts and old sweaters, instead one of the visceral thrills she gets is secretly trying on her boss’s clothes, something she’s explicitly forbidden to do, but operating completely on her own, almost never running into her boss, she sets her own boundaries.  With occasional skype calls from a boyfriend abroad (Ty Olwin), who is consumed by a high tech security instillation in Oman, Maureen makes frequent visits to her sister Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz), who seems to keep her grounded.  When not shopping for Kyra, she spends her free time communing with the dead, hoping for a sign from her recently deceased twin brother, Lewis, as both share the same congenital heart condition, which caused his sudden death, and both are psychic mediums, having made a pact that the first one to die would send a recognizable sign.  This aspect of the film has sinister implications, especially when the wrong spirits show up, as they are often angry and incensed at finding themselves summoned by strangers, where the idea of wandering endlessly in the spirit world does not sound inviting.  Because she is a medium, however, she’s able to understand these mix-ups, a skill viewers may not share, leaving them perplexed by the cinematic trickery involved, where the baffling weirdness of ghosts onscreen is still relatively shocking in arthouse cinema. 

Assayas shared the Best Direction prize at Cannes with Romanian director Christian Mungiu for Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2015), two very different styles of film, yet both are eerily distinctive at tapping into modern era anxieties and discontent, where Maureen is not only trying to come to terms with her brother’s death, exposing herself to phantoms of the spirit world, but leads such a detached existence, disconnected from her own employer, always missing each other, instead leaving each other notes, rarely having any contact, she is also targeted by an unknown caller on her smartphone, all but contaminating an indispensable part of her existence, who seems intimately familiar with her every move, initially suspecting it was her brother from beyond the grave, but it leads to more menacing implications, as if someone is stalking her and watching her every move, where an unsettling relationship, of sorts, develops over a prolonged sequence of text messages that leads to a great deal of confusion and fear, feeling completely exposed, even ashamed, where there are dangerous forces on the loose.  This powerful sense of emptiness and loss follows her everywhere, which may be associated with her enveloping grief, but is further exacerbated by her entry into the supernatural, where all the forces align in painting a complex portrait of contemporary unease, becoming a meditation on loss, but also jealousy, identity, and desire, where Maureen loses all sense of herself.  One of the more bizarre sequences finds Maureen alone in Kyra’s apartment, as she is away on business, allowing her to try on various outfits, changing places with her employer, perhaps reminiscent of Jean Genet’s The Maids, yet the eerie music on the soundtrack is Marlene Dietrich singing a bleak Viennese folksong about how Death doesn’t differentiate, as it cuts down the rich and poor alike, Marlene Dietrich "Das Hobellied" 1952 (Feathers 2/2). - YouTube (2:02), which opens the door to darker, more ominous forces that creep ever closer, brilliantly conveyed by a series of unread texts unraveling in waves, that develop a more threatening tone with every new line, instantly filling her with dread, feeling exposed, as if she is on the precipice of the abyss.  With the phone itself becoming an instrument of horror, violence ensues, though not as one might suspect, as technology is a tool that seems to have robbed our souls of greater meaning in life, leaving us even more disconnected and alone, a vulnerable and precarious position, to be sure.  Caught in a labyrinth of fear, she makes her escape, scampering off to Oman, where the specifics of her detailed instructions out into the hinterlands lead her farther and farther away from any recognizable signs of civilization, where she may as well be in an altogether different universe, like a portal to the unknown (where there is probably no cellphone connection).  Maureen continually places herself in haunted space, contemplating her experience afterwards, though by the end whether she is liberated or not remains an open question, yet there are inevitably lingering doubts, larger existential questions that go unanswered, but viewers are likely to be caught off-guard while the film searches for answers about the unknown mysteries of the modern world, including a driving, often irrational need to fill a void of emptiness in our human existence.