Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 44 mins
Director. Rose Glass
Cast. Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Katy O'Brian, Kristen Stewart.
Review.
Earlier this year, the British filmmaker Rose Glass followed up her horror film debut, Saint Maud with a second feature-length film, Love Lies Bleeding. The film - once again co-written by Weronika Tofilska - is an intensely violent and lethally smart noir thriller underpinned by a lurid tale of forbidden love dripping in sweat, blood and steroids.
From the outset, and the mundane workplace tasks such as unblocking the toilets, it is all too apparent that the reclusive Lou (Kirsten Stewart) leads a banal existence as the manager of Crater Gym. That is until a newcomer arrives at the gym. Female bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O'Brian) is ripped, outwardly confident and overtly sexual. Qualities that immediately catch the eye of Lou.
Kirsten Stewart delivers a surprisingly engaging performance - vulnerable, insecure and confused - producing a character full of false bravado who seems to be constantly in over her head (on more than one front). Meanwhile, Katy O'Brian's is raw and driven by emotion. So much of the intense nature of Love Lies Bleeding is founded on the relationship these two characters develop from the early moments of the film that by the film's conclusion, I had really bought the connection the pair had formed.
Indeed, strength is a key theme in Love Lies Bleeding. "I don't like guns," Jackie tells Lou's father (Ed Harris), when she asks him for a job. Jackie prefers, she adds, to depend upon her own strength. A distinction - between violence perpetrated with a gun and violence perpetrated with one's own body - which frames the entire film.
As demonstrated by Saint Maud, in which a devout and pious young nurse tries obsessively to save a sick patient's soul, Glass has a flair for conveying a character's descent into hysteria.
The opening two-thirds of Love Lies Bleeding feels like an arthouse noir thriller from the lexicon of David Lynch or Wim Wenders. Indeed, the sight of cavernous desert landscapes against a vast, seemingly endless starry sky is highly reminiscent of these auteur directors' style. Love Lies Bleeding cinematographer Ben Fordesman's visuals often recall the poetic, arid and dusty expanses favoured by legendary Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller, a frequent collaborator on films by Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier.
The elements of Love Lies Bleeding - extreme sport, forbidden eroticism and violent and chaotic murder - combined with the intensity of the film itself could have resulted in some form of neo-noir grindhouse classic. Indeed, that intensity means the more edgy and shocking moments feel all the more visceral. But the film culminates in a fantastical sequence that depending on your tastes, will play out as either preposterous or transcendent. Whilst I wasn't expecting a neatly packaged Thelma And Louise-style conclusion, Love Lies Bleeding's climax disappoints. The film, which to this point, was hugely engaging and dripping in tension, is let down spectacularly by an artistic decision that shattered my immersion in the tale.
Comments
Post a Comment