Playing at the LA&M Film Fetish Forum Saturday, January 20th at 7pm; it will be Co-Presented by Cinematic Void.
Director Yann Gonzalez’s “Knife+Heart” is a movie that’s too silly to be taken as a giallo, and too serious to be taken as a dark comedy. It’s constantly shifting in tones and storylines which makes its narrative frame work feel so disorienting and ultimately kind of unbearable. Truth be told I slept through a quarter of “Knife+Heart” because it has so much trouble maintaining its multiple plot threads that it just rambled for long periods of time. Any kind of momentum or tension that picks up during “Knife+Heart” feels accidental as director Gonzalez can never quite decide on what kind of story he’s trying to tell.
In the summer of 1979, Paris-based filmmaker Anne is a producer of third-rate gay porn. After her editor and lover Lois leaves her, she tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted, flamboyant sidekick Archibald. But when one of her actors is brutally murdered, Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside-down.
“Knife+Heart” does have the occasional gem to spare as it explores the whole idea of gay panic in the approaching 1980’s as well as the nuances of filming pornography. The whole film hinges on the performance of Vanessa Paradis who just isn’t a strong enough actress to carry the entire film. Paradis plays a self obsessed filmmaker named Anne who is driven to make gay pornography as a means of making money, all the while dealing with her own personal turmoil involving a lesbian relationship she can’t quite move past. Meanwhile there’s the masked serial killer who is prone to luring gay lovers and stabbing them to death with a phallic sex toy that hides a massive knife.
Anne is seemingly not as affected by the murders as her LGBTQ colleagues and friends are, as she decides to use the murders as a means of inspiration for her gay porn. Director Gonzalez is occasionally clever in cutting to scenes that presume to be investigations in to the murders, but are actually scenes being filmed for Anne’s porno. This derives some considerable grins, but nothing that can really compensate for the film’s downright uneven pacing, and dull sub-plots. “Knife+Heart” literally hinges on Anne’s character, and she’s just not interesting. Granted, Yanna Gonzalez is a solid director who manages to evoke some great scenes soaked in synth music and bold colors reminiscent of the classic giallo films.
In the end, though (after I forced myself awake), I was more ready to move on from “Knife+Heart.”