This is a French horror offering from director Claire Denis,
although the infrequent dialogue is basically in the English language,
and the occasional French is subtitled.
Vincent Gallo and his wife Tricia Vessey are Yanks, off to Paris on
their honeymoon. The first hint that something is wrong is when Gallo
locks himself in the airplane restroom and fantasizes about his wife
being covered in blood. Meanwhile, in Paris, Alex Descas has problems
with his wife, Beatrice Dalle. We soon learn that Vincent Gallo knows
Alex Descas and his wife, and eventually find out that Beatrice Dalle
and Vincent Gallo have the same affliction. I don't want to give too
much away, but lets just say that Gallo takes the phrase "eating
pussy" literally.
Much has been made of two scenes that involve flesh-eating, but
either I was anesthetized by the slow pace of the film, or the scenes
were simply too dark, because they had little or no impact on me. I
find the terms slow-paced and horror mutually exclusive in general
(think old-school zombie films), which might explain my reaction to
this film. It is not without plusses, mainly the photography, but also
engaging performances by Tricia Vessey and Florence Loiret. Those
positives were not enough to prevent me from being glad to see it
finish, even though I felt the ending offered more questions than
answers.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
