Rose Glass
Love Lies Bleeding

The recent viewing of "Love lies bleeding" reminded me of an event from many years ago. Specifically, at the beginning of the '70s, news came out that in the United States of America, a new method of cinematic reproduction had been patented. Essentially, in some pilot theaters, they attempted to project films in an immersive and all-encompassing way. The viewer would sit in a chair and, besides seeing and hearing the film, could also perceive the same smells and scents experienced in various film sequences. A great idea on paper, but when a film was projected with a sequence shot near a freshly fertilized agricultural field, the irritated reaction of the audience was inevitable. As you can easily imagine, the theater emptied, and from then on, there was no more talk of new methods of cinematic reproduction.

However, all of the above does not detract from the fact that a film's strength can be the director's ability to fully render the physicality of the characters and the situations they are involved in. In "Love lies bleeding," the director Rose Glass (already appreciated in "Saint Maud") succeeds in the best way possible in rendering the environment of a gym and its patrons, all tense from the physical effort of exercising to stay in shape. To the point that it seems you can perceive the sweat of the same, as well as the scent of bodies involved in sexual intercourse. The film, in fact, takes place in a gym in a remote town in New Mexico, in the late '80s, and is run by a certain Lou, a girl attracted to available peers. Lou is at odds with her father, the manager of a nearby shooting range and a psychopathic criminal, in good terms with the corrupt local police. An overall squalid setting.

When a bodybuilder like Jackie, determined to rise in a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas, passes through the area, it's love at first sight with Lou. But all of this will open a veritable Pandora's box within Lou's troubled family.

The story is raw, and what I defined as "physicality" keeps the viewer's attention sharp, without the director holding back in framing the amour fou between two young women, one of whom (Jackie, to be precise) acts boldly and is like dynamite, ready to avenge past wrongs and resort to the gun (a classic Yankee).

Where the film slips (and thus loses ground) is where the director exceeds in tone, so much so as to make Jackie a kind of Superwoman of exaggerated dimensions, a female version of the Incredible Hulk. Here it shifts to a comic book tone. Fortunately, actors are in great shape. Not only Kristen Stewart as the rumpled and sexy Lou, alongside Katy O'Brian who plays herself since she's already a bodybuilder in real life, but also an unforgettable Ed Harris (Lou's father) with a wrinkled face and long hair that makes him resemble a long-haired iguana with eccentric ways, collecting and eating live insects.

An eccentric film, certainly, and with some stylistic flaws, not recommended for those who still hold a romantic and idealistic view of life and love. None of that, as the film's title suggests, and as it can be translated into Italian, love lies or bleeds lying. In short, a filthy affair of lies and blood, like life.