Themes: Dangerous Attraction, Serial Killers, Cannibals
Main Cast: Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Descas, Florence Loiret
Release Year: 2001
Country: FR
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
Two strangers share a strange and terrible bond in this stylish horror tale that juggles sex and graphic bloodshed. Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) is a strange man with a forbidding nature who has just married lovely but nervous June (Tricia Vessey), and they've decided to go to Paris for their honeymoon. In the City of Lights, a beautiful but dangerous woman named Core (Beatrice Dalle) has been leaving a trail of dead bodies in her wake when she's captured by Leo Semeneau (Alex Descas), a mysterious scientist who spirits her away to his estate. As Core is placed under guard, Semeneau leaves to return to the city for an unnamed assignment; we soon learn that one of Shane's reasons for coming to Paris was to find him and retrieve some important information. In time, we also discover that Shane and Core have something rather unusual in common -- both are murderous cannibals who regularly feast on the flesh of their victims, and Semeneau's information may hold the key to the secret behind their deadly appetite. Trouble Every Day generated a certain amount of controversy in its screenings at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where a number of patrons walked out in disgust at the film's intense blend of sensuality and cannibalism. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day is a perverse and challenging tale, a uniquely sensual metaphorical dramatization of sexual obsession that spends a bit too much time on its fairly ludicrous plot. Denis has earned her reputation as a critics' darling with visually compelling and thoughtful films like Beau Travail, and has dealt with similar dark subject matter, though in a far more detached and less graphic way, in the serial killer drama I Can't Sleep. It's safe to say that, despite many esthetic similarities to her earlier films (elliptically presented narrative, little dialogue, sumptuously intimate visuals), Trouble represents new territory for the filmmaker. Denis is clearly unconcerned with genre conventions, and her film doesn't adhere to the traditional rhythms of the horror film. Her focus is not on suspense or narrative drive (the narrative gets in the way every time it rears its ugly head), but on animal lust as human disease and its analogous resolution in the consumption of human flesh. Vincent Gallo, with his grungy hangdog looks, and Beatrice Dalle (Betty Blue), with her uniquely feral facial features, are perfectly cast as the afflicted carnivores. As their respective spouses, fragile beauty Tricia Vessey and stoic Alex Descas do solid work. Unfortunately, the inanity of the story makes it impossible to view these characters as people. They function better as metaphors. The film's truly gruesome and extremely unnerving sex scenes, including Gallo's dalliance with a hotel chambermaid and especially Dalle's seduction of a teenage delinquent, push the film into new territory, literalizing sexual appetite in a visceral way. You expect Denis to cut away from the blood and gore, but she lingers on it like a lover cuddling up after sex. These scenes are powerful -- dark, erotic, and even funny, if viewed from the remote perspective Denis' approach fosters. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
The film received harsh reactions from critics. Variety wrote that it is an "over-long, under-written and needlessly obscure instead of genuinely atmospheric".[1]The Boston Globe was more positive, but concludes by calling the film "a success in some sense, but it's hard to like a film so cold and dead" [2].
Later, the film developed a small following who admire it for its themes of existentialism and its unique take on the horrorgenre as well as gender roles. It was given an in depth analysis by Salon.com which looked at the intricacies of the film, particularly the metaphorical nature of the narrative. At Film Freak Central, Walter Chaw calls it "Plaintive and sad, Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day is a rare combination of honesty, beauty, and maybe even genius."[3] The film has been associated with the New French Extremity.[4]
