Monday, 25 March 2024 11:03

Love Lies Bleeding

love lies bleeding

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

 

US, 2024, 104 minutes, Colour.

Kristin Stewart, Katie O'Brien, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco.

Directed by Rose Glass.

 

In fact, quite an amount of hate, hateful characters, also lie bleeding.

The comment by critic, Sandra Hall, suggested that this film was a Thelma and Louise on steroids. But, it’s not just an image, there is quite an amount of actual steroid Ealing and taking. The film opens at a gym, men and women, muscles bulging, sweaty, exercising. The gym is managed by Lou (Kristin Stewart, Twilight days long past), tough, initially seen cleaning a dirty toilet, stalked by a fellow worker, but taken aback when she sees Jack (Katie O’Brien, martial arts instructor and actress) come in to work out.

The love of the title is the relationship between U and Jack, often intense, but immediately complicated. Who is alienated from her gangster father, an eerie and wrinkled Ed Harris, devoted to her sister Beth (Jena Malone) who is married to an extremely smug and dislikeable JJ (Dave Franco). JJ is doubletiming his wife, including with Jack, is violent towards Beth, hospitalising her. Lou is angry but Jack is even angrier with the result that JJ, his face brutally disfigured, lies bleeding.

And, so, this film becomes something of a gritty thriller, especially with the women deciding to get rid of the body in a vast pit, where Sue many other bodies are buried, hoping to implicate Lou’s father.

Jake has also had an ambition, to enter a body building competition in Las Vegas and, with all the complications and tensions with Lou, she hitchhikes there and enters the event, only to fail, experiences a repulsive hallucination which is dramatised for the benefit of the audience, humiliated.

While the setting is Nevada, the film was shot in New Mexico and, one wonders why, the year is 1989 and there are direct references to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the migration to West Berlin and freedom.

A number of responders to Love Lies Bleeding is to see it as a film noir, better, a neo-noir. A brief definition of film noir states a style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace.. Black-and-white style was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s, especially in Hollywood. While this film is in colour, it is often in very dark colour, widescreen but the directors instantly using close-ups, especially faces, the screen sometimes turning red, which means that the director, Rose Glass (the horror film, St Maud) creates quite a menacing atmosphere.

Some audiences in the past found film noir too grim. And, despite the colour here, many audiences will find the narrative, the characters, the steroid atmosphere, the brutal interactions, too grim.

  1. The title? The love? Characters bleeding? Deaths? Physical? Emotional?
  2. The 1989 setting, references to the Berlin wall and freedom? The small American town, the gym, the gangster and his mansion, apartments, hospital, the streets, the precipice of the dump? Atmosphere? The musical score?
  3. Lou’s story, age, background, sexual orientation, Daisy stalking her, her father and alienation, the disappearance of her mother, managing the gym, dealing the steroids, relationship with Beth, dislikeable JJ? Attracted to Jackie, intensity, Jackie talking, smoking (all the anti-smoking talk, yet the end), offering the steroids, the results, the sexual attraction, encounters, going home with Lou? The meal with Beth and JJ, as violent behaviour, later hospitalising Beth? Lou’s reaction, Jackie’s reaction? Jackie brutally killing JJ, Lou’s reaction, getting rid of the body, the carpet, the drive, Daisy seeing them on the road, a later use of this information, the car over the cliff, igniting it, the smoke? Lou and her meticulous cleaning of the house, her father’s arrival, knowing what had happened?
  4. Jackie, ousted from home, on the road, bodybuilding, the ambitions for the competition, the sexual encounter with JJ, getting the job, the interview with Lou’s father, the smoke break and her encountering him, meeting Lou, the steroids, the exercise, the relationship, intense? Her angry reaction to JJ, killing him? Getting rid of the body? Lou wanting her to keep quiet, locking the door, Jackie getting out, going to the gym? The clash with Lou? Jackie hitchhiking, Las Vegas, entering the competition, the other women, the parade, the judges, her performance, going well, her being overcome, the hallucination, too many drugs, her being sick, imagining vomiting Lou? The humiliation? The return, Lou’s father and his control, giving her the gun, the jealousy about Daisy and the phone calls to Lou, shooting Daisy? Captured by the thugs, bound, Lou finding her, freeing her, her pulling the gun on Lou?
  5. Lou’s father, gangster, the murders, memories of his wife, her death? The police in his pay? Confronting Lou, confronting Jackie? Lou and the gun, her father’s injuries, the gun in his mouth, not killing him, her informing the police, his arrest?
  6. Daisy, at the gym, infatuated with Lou, jealous, seeing the cars on the road, confronting Lou, staying the night, the breakfast, the threats, Lou talking head down? Jackie shooting her? The finale with the body, dead or alive, Lou burying her in the desert?
  7. The style of the film, neo-noir, the use of close-ups, faces, widescreen? Atmosphere? The colour shades, screen red? The room, sometimes ironic, touches of horror?