Knife + Heart is a surreal and fantastically beautiful horror film that goes beyond giallo. While elements of the Italian murder mystery sub-genre are present, Un couteau dans le coeur seems more devoted to the over all FEEL of 1970s film making, ranging from giallo to supernatural horror to pretentious art film to seedy porn. I don't know if it's just me, but I also suspected the director is an Alan Parsons Project fan - some of the music sounds vaguely like the late 70s-early 80s group and there is in fact a huge pyramid in a strange scene for no apparent reason.
Vanessa Paradis is drop dead sexy as middle-aged, hard drinking lesbian Anne. Paradis radiates the kind of mysterious rough living, junkie chic that Courtney Love had before she got rich, cleaned up and had plastic surgery...except twenty years older. Anne is every brazen, aging trailer-park prostitute personified and is utterly compelling in her sometimes creepy, sometimes sympathetic madness. In a few scenes I saw real chemistry between Anne and Lois, but as gay as this flick is, lesbian sexuality is disappointingly minimal. The ladies' gay bar though is a real treat with its red velveteen, gentle butch bartender and bizarre gothic furry sex play.
Beautiful middle aged women are everywhere, and this is as much of a nod to gay culture as to affirmation of lesbian women as attractive in their older years. It may also be a nod to giallo director Antonio Bido who put middle aged women repeatedly in his films, a really unique touch during an era of giallo which glorified very young fashion model types as scream queens.
Vanessa Paradis is drop dead sexy as middle-aged, hard drinking lesbian Anne. Paradis radiates the kind of mysterious rough living, junkie chic that Courtney Love had before she got rich, cleaned up and had plastic surgery...except twenty years older. Anne is every brazen, aging trailer-park prostitute personified and is utterly compelling in her sometimes creepy, sometimes sympathetic madness. In a few scenes I saw real chemistry between Anne and Lois, but as gay as this flick is, lesbian sexuality is disappointingly minimal. The ladies' gay bar though is a real treat with its red velveteen, gentle butch bartender and bizarre gothic furry sex play.
Beautiful middle aged women are everywhere, and this is as much of a nod to gay culture as to affirmation of lesbian women as attractive in their older years. It may also be a nod to giallo director Antonio Bido who put middle aged women repeatedly in his films, a really unique touch during an era of giallo which glorified very young fashion model types as scream queens.