Love Lies Bleeding

Just go see this film and avoid the trailers, which unfortunately are spoilers and could raise misleading expectations. Love Lies Bleeding has a neo-noir heart pumping blood to the organs of post-modern shifts that include a rural desert setting, refreshingly subtle 1980s retro stylisation (no kitsch as in Stranger Things) and a crowning gender+queer twist. Fortunately, there’s no cartilaginous connective tissue here, as everything is driving by the massive musculature of captivating physicality, vivid stylisation and a distinctive creative perspective. Rose Glass confirms that she belongs among the makers of intensely sensory films, thus expanding this hitherto male-dominated club (with Gaspar Noé, Jonas Åkerlund, Jonathan Glazer and Harmony Korine at the fore) with a fresh, unique voice that in certain respects is more down to earth while at the same time managing to incorporate a much broader range of motifs. Like the other aforementioned filmmakers, Glass works with exaggerated visual stylisation, highly distinctive characters and a modern visuality unbound by the limits of mainstream hyper-realism. She spins the symbiosis of these elements into a captivatingly physical experience for viewers. Accordingly, her work with noir is not limited to the usual formulas such as the concept of the femme fatale or the narrative structure of an investigation. She goes to the instinctual and dark essence of the genre, even diving into the dark, viscous waters of Southern Gothic. She highlights passion, obsession, the dreadful appeal of violence and the power of the manipulativeness of blood ties. She also manages to weave into the main story a number of complementary motifs, from the monstrousness of ego to the myth of the land of limitless opportunities. In doing so, however, she still tells of love and its power to crush us and everything around. (19.02.2024)

I once suffered through Rose Glass' Saint Maud, but I was looking forward to this one thanks to the stylish trailer. It's okay and I'm very much between 3 and 4 stars, but I'm going to be stricter in the end because the plot is pretty straightforward with no significant changes throughout, and Kristen Stewart is not a pretty sight to look at. Luckily the testosterone-soaked Katy O’Brian was the best character in the whole movie, I could see her as a final girl in some kind of monster movie. The film has a nice retro look of the American backwoods, a nice lesbian romance with R-rated erotic scenes, a sleazy Ed Harris, and there were some corpses, so I liked it, I enjoyed it, but I was expecting a bit more. The bizarre fantasy ending didn't quite work for me. 65% (28.04.2024)