Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986)

Jean-Hugues Anglade and Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue

Cast: Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle, Gérard Darmon, Consuelo De Haviland, Clémentine Célarié, Jacques Mathou. Screenplay: Jean-Jacques Beineix, based on a novel by Philippe Dijian. Cinematography: Jean-François Robin. Production design: Carlos Conti. Film editing: Monique Prim, Pablo Ferro. Music: Gabriel Yared. 

Jean-Jacques Beineix's "director's cut" of Betty Blue is three hours long, more than an hour longer than its theatrical release, padding out its story of the relationship of a man and an unstable woman to epic length. I have to admit that it didn't feel that long, partly because its whiplash changes in tone and its constant introduction of new, oddball characters kept me wondering what might happen next. Some credit, too, must go to the actors who play its protagonists, the hapless Zorg (Jean-Hughes Anglade) and the unpredictable Betty (Béatrice Dalle), whose undeniable chemistry holds the whole thing together. It's often quite beautiful: Jean-François Robin's cinematography makes the most of its various French settings, and the frequently naked Anglade and Dalle are pleasant to see. But is it anything more than an overextended tale of an ill-fated couple, laced with soft-core porn? Is there a point in its switches from comedy to pain? Unfortunately, Beineix doesn't give us enough substance to make me feel that answering those questions is worth the effort.  

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

Béatrice Dalle in Trouble Every Day

Cast: Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Decas, Florence Loiret Caille, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Raphaël Neal, José Garcia, Hélène Lapoiwer, Marilu Marini, Aurore Clément. Screenplay: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau. Cinematography: Agnès Godard. Production design: Arnaud de Moleron. Film editing: Nelly Quettier. Music: Tindersticks. 

Claire Denis has steadily resisted linear storytelling and expository dialogue, preferring to trust audiences to pay attention, to assemble the narrative of her films themselves. The result has been films touched with greatness like Beau Travail (1999) and White Material (2009) that invite viewers to experience their stories with greater immediacy than if they were spoon-fed the relationships and motivations of the characters. But sometimes this demand on the viewer backfires, as I think it does in Trouble Every Day. Watching the film can be a visceral experience, a descent into transgressive behavior that's made more disturbing because Denis treats it so coldly. Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) and Coré Sémeneau (Béatrice Dalle) are both afflicted with extreme versions of a malady, apparently contracted in Guyana, that causes them to become violent when sexually aroused. Shane has his mostly under control, it seems, except that he's newly married and on his honeymoon. To protect his wife from his impulses, he masturbates, once interrupting their intercourse to jerk off frantically. Coré's case has advanced much further: Her husband, a physician (Alex Descas), keeps her locked up, but she escapes to have sex and then bite vampire-like into the throats of her victims. Shane has come to Paris to see Dr. Sémeneau, who has been researching this disorder. After Trouble Every Day culminates in one of the most brutal rape scenes ever staged in a film, we're left with only the suggestion that sex and violence are intimately related, hardly a novel idea. It's one treated in, for example, the two movies called Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942, and Paul Schrader, 1982). Critics were mostly harsh when it was released, yet some revisionism has occurred, possibly because Denis is unquestionably a filmmaker who must be taken seriously. But unlike her best films, Trouble Every Day lacks the payoff of experiencing something meaningful. It ends up being only an intellectualized horror movie.