Trouble Every Day

MOVIE #1,124 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.25.23 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝙻𝙰𝙸𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝙽𝙸𝚂 (𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚑: [𝚍ə𝚗𝚒];) 𝙳𝙸𝚁𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙾𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝙲𝚄𝚂 I swear I’m not trying to be contrarian. I’m not sure why the Denis films I’ve found myself the most engaged by have been what the consensus seems to think is her lesser work. (Posit this thought with a grain of salt, however: an auteur like this is going to inspire a wide array of takes in general.) This oblique quasi-vampire tale is easily the most disgusting film she’s ever made by a mile (Vincent Gallo bites of a lady’s vagina during a rape-murder scene). But it also falls right in line with her less is more aesthetic as far as context is concerned. She loves asking far more questions than she ever attempts to answer. That alone can be a frustrating roadblock but when it works, it tends to really work, and I thought this was easily one of her best movies yet because of it.

And while the audience is certainly tasked with some heavy lifting as far as ‘figuring shit out’ goes, I thought Trouble Every Day had perhaps the most tangible plot of her filmography to date. Still, while its elusive nature — and that of her work on the whole — has made parsing the themes rather difficult, it’s a good problem in the end. Even bad CGI fire doesn’t change that…

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,123 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,125 ⫸

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Trouble Every Day is a 2001 French erotic horror film directed by Claire Denis and written by Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau. It stars Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Descas and Marilu Marini. The film's soundtrack is provided by Tindersticks. It was released on May 13, 2001.