I was so keen to see Knife + Heart (2018; Un couteau dans le coeur), a queer take on the giallo genre, when it showed at the French Film Festival a few years back. I missed it at cinemas and was meaning to catch up with it – thank the neon-lit heavens for Mubi keeping it in their library all this time. I’d seen director Yann Gonzalez’s previous film, You And The Night, which had style to burn alongside the M83 soundtrack (Anthony Gonzalez, the director’s brother). I didn’t quite get it though, nor appreciated its debt to Rainer Werner Fassbinder melodramas about sex and relationships. Here, in a specific sub-genre with visuals and iconography that refers to other movies that I’m sure are favourites of Yann Gonzalez’s – William Friedkin’s Cruising, Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, etc – I was more hooked. Set in late 1970s Paris, a curly haired killer in a gimp mask cruises nightclubs and picks up young men, only to murder them brutually with a blade that pops out of a dildo. The murder victims are actors connected to gay pornography produced by Anne Pareze (Vanessa Paradis who is great) who is an alcoholic and is nursing a broken heart due to the soured relationship with her editor Lois (Kate Moran). Anne is is comforted by one of her main actors and collaborators, Archibald (Nicolas Maury). As more young men are savagely killed and the police are slow to move, Anne starts to investigate herself, leading to several strange detours, all keeping in the spirit of giallo thrillers. I was fully into this movie’s aesthetic and vibe, which is helped by another fantastic M83 electronic score. What was most beautiful to me was that even though the plot and images revolve around grisly deaths and sleazy scenes, there’s a dreamy, sincerely felt quality that feels particular to the director’s work as a filmmaker. Synthesising a genre and an iconography that Gonzalez clearly loves, the genre’s historically exploitative elements are crafted into a tribute to a sub-culture and a milieu that offered sexual release, passionate romance and creative freedom. Also features great supporting turns by Elina Lowensohn and Romane Bohringer. Brilliant cinematography by Simone Beaufils and costuming by Pauline Jacquard. Available to stream on Mubi. Recommended.
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