Directed by:
Philippe GrandrieuxScreenplay:
Philippe GrandrieuxCinematography:
Jessica Lee GagnéComposer:
Ferdinand GrandrieuxCast:
Kristian Marr, Ariane Labed, Roxane Mesquida, Paul Hamy, Gabrielle Lazure, Johan Leysen, Christopher Buchholz, Sam Louwyck, Aurélien Recoing (more)Plots(1)
As we can expect from Philippe Grandrieux, Malgré la nuit does not allow itself to be classified easily. His latest film feels more Lynchian than ever, but it is much more than that. It may well be a sensual exploration of the dark side of love or an intimate portrait of jealousy and regret. It may be a romantic drama about people who don't know how to be romantic. Whatever, it's a film about Lenz, a young man who returns from England to Paris in order to look for his beloved Madeleine. And about Helena and Lena, the women he finds instead of Madeleine. Above all, it's a story about the destructive consequences of all these encounters, which takes the form of a macabre sexual underworld. Of course all of this is portrayed as only Grandrieux can: physical, stylised and hyper-sexual. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
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The sleep of reason gives rise to monsters, fortunately, because Grandrieux's night full of emotions can be inhabited by monsters, but also by fallen women and fallen angels of self-destructive emotions. The night of reason gives rise to owls and bats in Goya and also in Grandrieux we descend with bats into the cave of a relatively isolated social milieu, in which every inclination is confirmed by physicality at the moment of its conception, just as the painter's imagination has given tangible form to falling ideas in the shape of animals – and we will truly observe the whole film as every speech, every deepest word passes on its way to the other person into a fully tangible sexual expression. Without compromising in any way, since chiaroscuro is a valuable technique that reveals that contrast can be more impressive than the formlessness of day, and the director proves that synthesis can unite image and word in opposition. To connect so perfectly fantastically that the viewer, who succumbs, feels an inexpressible understanding, even though the film cannot explain too much... How, after all, can one coherently express that connecting line that begins in one realm of human experience and ends in another?
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