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Trouble Every Day (2001)
Another master work by auteur Claire Denis, and just like many of her films is completely entrancing. A story of individuals, the inability to communicate and love, and how that can affect us like a disease, one which can be overcome even if (or perhaps especially if) the change seems impossible (the disease, in this case, is illustrated in cannibalism, the reason this film has been so sadly derided). The film is structured in opposites, each character painted with polar attributes and allowed to suffer and love on their own.
It is a challenging film, and even to describe it only as I did above would be reductive. There is an astonishing style. Sex acts, given their ambiguous role, are framed in ambiguous close-ups; overlapping limbs and crevices and canvases of naked skin. The soundtrack is there, but doesn't intrude. And we are given performances of absolute abandon (especially from Béatrice Dalle, which is important considering her character).
Trouble Every Day is bold and violent, yet haunting and tender; a film that probes the grotesqueness of individual suffering, and does it bravely.
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