Trouble Every Day

parker. lorry. mouth. dig. writhe. plane. headache. hotel. bath. muff. brain. locked. pills. questions. scarf. breaking. entering. penetration. bite. lungs. yum. burn. consummate. consume. credits.

That's the plot of Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day. Yes, it's cryptic and absolutely pretentious. It doesn't really tell you much either. But the same criticism should be leveled at the film. To say anything more about the plot, other than it's about two cannibalistic nymphos in Paris, will pretty much ruin any pleasure or tension a viewer can garner from the exercise. Denis tries to hide the film's anorexia of occurrence (she may think she is celebrating it) by the drawn-out hour it takes to get to the main meal. Characters wander around Paris. Questions asked are only half answered. She has orchestrated our attention to the screen with a dull image poem. How are Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle connected beyond their shared affliction? Why does Alex Descas put up with this mad (horny and hungry) woman (Dalle) in the attic? What will happen if the chambermaid takes those pills? Does Tricia Vessey's coat, light grey and very sixties, have any significance? You'll clutch at straws. Is it about the value of sex versus security in marriage? Could be. It is such an ambiguous piece of cinema it could be a coded critique of French hotels. By about an hour in, you'll be willing the screen for an answer, a sign, anything that'll decode the slow, procession of related but unoriginal and unmotivated shots that have shorn an hour out of your day.

And then it happens.

A young lad breaks into Dalle's Jane Eyre-ish prison. They decide to get it on. During his moans of pleasure, he feels 'La Grande Bouche' is tucking into him. Literally. The audience, who have been desperately trying to join the dots and decipher what is being unsaid, are concentrating far too hard when this happens. We are trapped under Dalle. And she is eating us. The shot jerks. With every bite and tug of flesh, we cut to the same angle just slightly closer. It is a very gruelling sequence. More is to follow. As someone who can claim to be generally unfazed with gore and gushing on the big screen even I will admit to being put to the test by this claustrophobic scene. My cheeks went paler with every bite, my stomach rose to my tonsils. You may laugh, you may hurl, you may hide behind your arthouse programme but Denis has managed to devastate you with exactly the reason you bought the ticket. She has managed to subvert the movie's selling point of flesh, both sexy and devoured. And that is an achievement considering a poster tagline as playfully explicit as "I love you so much... I could eat you".

Despite the effectiveness of this scene, one cannot help but feel a sense of the Emperor's New Clothes in the continued praise of Claire Denis' output. She tends to produce visual affairs with a distinct lack of retinal razzle-dazzle. She gives physical performers like Dalle or Denis Levant in Beau Travail (1999) the opportunity to take centre stage; but she elicits nothing from these performers to match their inspiring turns in Betty Blue (1986) or Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991), respectively. She clearly avoids dialogue as a method of exposition yet lacks the flair and economy of the great silent directors to give her works a measured pace. She also has the crutch of sound to fall back on, although here the Tindersticks soundtrack (never before have a band and a film's subject matter been so appropriately matched) is underused and often ineffective. Her earlier works, which examined interracial romance, inspired better but ignored directors like Joe Brewster (hunt down his The Keeper (1995) for a perfect accompaniment to any previous Denis venture).

The theme that all Denis' works share is the monotonous grind of everyday routine; the training of the rooster in No Fear, No Die (1990), the exercises of the legionaries in Beau Travail, or the addictive need to fuck and feast in Trouble Every Day. If Denis' oeuvre is to be believed, routine creates barriers between us. Just like the daily preparations Decas' doctor has to take to prevent his beloved getting away, cheating on him and eating out. It may all be related but the daily grind of individuals, no matter how extraordinary, is equally grinding for the viewer when seen through a realist's lens.

Reviewed by Bob Carroll