Trouble Every Day: the Space Between Kiss and Bite

The first time I watched Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, I hadn’t read its synopsis. It was a film I’d sought out entirely based on its gorgeous film poster. I was tired, I was in an airport and I hadn’t paid attention to its opening scene. Other than the Comic Sans title card, which— yes— in hindsight, should have suggested this film was full of violence. 

I ended up paying attention post-title. I don’t hear his character’s name, so Vincent Gallo is Vincent Gallo. He was celebrating his marriage to a pixie-ish bride on an aeroplane to Paris (Irrelevant aside, but I could write an entirely separate review about the sound design of the aeroplane scenes. It’s so good). The two shared aeroplane champagne, and excitedly looked out of their tiny window to the black sky. They pointed out the city lights below. During the scene, he took her wrist and devotedly spent time kissing her wrist. As he followed the pattern of her veins downward in open-mouthed adoration, it just came to me.

‘Vincent Gallo wants to eat that.’

I think this is almost a film about cannibalism before someone is devoured on-screen. That thought came to me after missing any cues of cannibalism in the opening sequence. I had also seen nothing about the film but a picture of two characters in a non-bloody embrace. Yet the film’s non-violent intimacy carries a pointed scariness that locks you in suspense.

Once I received visual confirmation that it was a film about cannibalism, I wanted to know what I was looking at. There’s a lot to say about the niche in terms of metaphors. I’ve seen every thinkpiece about cannibalism’s media symbolism: from consumerism, addiction, queerness, to arguably its most common media manifestation: sexual desire. When called to defend her film after multiple walk-outs at Cannes and two reported faintings, Denis said this film was about none of that. 

At a press conference following the screening, Denis insisted the film was not “explicit or violent. It’s actually a love story. Being explicit is not what I’m interested in, and I don’t think it’s about cannibalism either. […] It’s about desire and how close the kiss is to the bite. I think every mother wants to eat her baby with love. We just took this on to a new frontier.” 

Cannibalistic erotic thrillers—or Romance Films, even— are nothing new. Paramedics were called at Toronto Film Festival’s screening of Raw in 2016, which immediately comes to mind as a Gallic ero-thriller. As does my favourite of Luca Guadagnino’s films, Bones and All, when considering cannibals in love. I would not call Trouble Every Day the anaemic version of either film.

So, I’ve been talking about a lot of fluff for some time. What actually got this film a spot on effedupmovies? Trouble Every Day follows two individuals afflicted with a nymphomaniac disease that drives them to seduce and consume their victims alive. The two bloodthirsty lovers are Coré (Beatrice Dallé) and Shane (Vincent Gallo). When we meet them, they’re split between two relationships. They both suffer from their psychosexual hunger, releasing their needs onto the public rather than their partners. Supposedly, this is out of love.  

Shane and his newlywed wife, June (Tricia Vessey), honeymoon in Paris. What Shane does not tell his wife, on top of his desire to kill her, is that he is seeking out his old colleagues. Shane searches for Coré and her husband Leo (Alex Descas). The three turn out to have known each other as a team of scientists, undergoing the same research. This research concerned the human libido. He cannot initially locate Coré and Leo. The discussions Shane has with staff at their old lab indicate something went horribly wrong in these experiments. Rejected by the medical community, Leo has retreated into a reclusive life.

In the present, we learn that Leo has been attempting to keep Coré locked away from the public. This is to stop her from devouring truckers she lures onto the roadside. When his attempts fail, he reluctantly embarks on rescue missions to bring her back. His care for her in these instances is unsettling; there is so much tenderness in how he cleans the gore from her body.

On Shane’s mission, we find out there is a shrouded connection between him and Coré, as ex-lovers of some kind. Their eventual interaction made me realise how much more I wanted to see of them, but they’re relegated to the diegetic past outside of that one instance. There are a lot of half-baked elements. 

In all honesty, a lot of the film’s plot details came to my attention after my first and second watch. At the risk of its exposition, the film is too preoccupied with capturing its characters’ hunger for intimate violence. It’s overly committed to conveying the anticipation of its next on-screen devourance. It settles firmly on questionable glances from partners and never moves to the elucidation of their feelings. 

A wildly popular assertion is that this film is about vampires. Again, yet another interpretation that somehow didn’t come to mind upon my first watch. In reaction to their significant others’ flights of carnage, June feigns ignorance, and Leo endures his wife’s condition. However, the camera spends time moving over expressions and body language that suggest they could experience jealousy over the acts their partners shield them from.

That reading is, of course, more traditionally vampiric in comparison to other messages a viewer could take away. Most would suggest the bloodlust is emblematic of adultery, sex addiction, fetishism or even a dissection of sex-offence as a whole. If Denis wished to convey a more linear film about love and violence, the waters are certainly a little muddy. 

By now, I’ve covered enough of the negative critique the film garnered, but I do question—is it at least universally thought to be gorgeous? Every scene soothes some obsessive, Pinterest-curating, Spotify-playlist-cover-hunting animal inside me. It has one of my favourite visual styles I’ve seen. The cinematographer knows their textures. The pattern of blood mixed with steam and water on the shower curtain is an image that has stuck in my mind. 

If I were to give my two cents on what makes this film so mesmerising to me, it would be how it captures the mystique of liminal spaces. I think splashing violence, longing, and passion over spaces like aeroplanes, hotels, and even laboratories is somehow the best aesthetic decision. It’s the formula for the best attributes of the film. 

Henri Behar, sharing the podium with Denis, defended the film by stating, “If you look at this film a second time, it is not that explicit. It is very carefully done.” I agree with that. Upon second viewing, I found out I somehow really like this film and that I would recommend it to absolutely no one. You know, for fear of self-effacing all future opinions I voice to that individual.

I think this is a wonderful anomaly by a talented director. It’s one of the messier, controversial stains on a catalogue—therefore it’s the one that inevitably speaks to my tastes the most. In a room of pointing fingers at this one’s content, I’ll turn a blind eye…maybe scroll on my feed and find a poster for yet another disgusting movie I’ll have to pretend not to like.