Film Reviews / Jul. 24, 2018
During a rainy night, a woman sitting at the back of a motorbike asks the driver to wait a minute: she is waiting for a man. But when her date shows up, the motorist is gone. The woman sadly asks who the motorist was. This is the opening of the member of French band M83, Yann Gonzalez’s first feature film – You and the Night (2013), a suspenseful and weird gem in queer cinema.
A straight couple and a cross-dressed servant live in a mansion. At midnight, the house received many unique guests, including a slut, a stud, a teenage boy and a female superstar. They all have a past they want to forget, they want to let go and numb themselves in desire. However, the straight couple and servant’s story surprises them and inspires them to seek relationships and human connections again. Can happy endings last forever? And for those who do not have one… are they destined to live a miserable life?
Yann Gonzalez borrowed the dark gothic genre tropes and eccentric comedic elements from the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975). He brought classic fairy tales back to life: the main character of this film is a combination of The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, and Vampire, a powerful transvestite envious of the couple’s sincere relationship. She gives them a spell that promises will keep them together forever and they will never grow old. However, in order to keep their youth, they have to be able to always turn themselves on. Yann Gonzalez uses his unreal imagination and hopeless romantic ideas to reflect on the nature of desire, fragility and steadiness.
Kate Moran plays the woman in the straight couple. Since Yann Gonzalez’s first short film (By the Kiss, 2006), they have formed an unbreakable partnership. Her character is willing to give, yet afraid to lose and she conveys this contradiction in every gesture. The man is played by Niels Schneider, who became famous after his role in Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats (2010). His melancholic aura fits the character, and also shows the helplessness in apathy. Hilarious character actor Nicolas Maury plays the role of the transvestite servant in one of the film highlights. Football idol, Eric Cantona plays the role of “talented” stud. His character is a twist om the classic macho stereotype. Béatrice Dalle’s performance is also worth a mention.
You and the Night shows the engines of love regardless of sexual orientation, age, and identity. At the same time, the film is also filled of the loneliness and dissatisfaction that comes with long-term relationship. Maybe thinking relationships will last forever is just a way to trick ourselves. Like the servant said: “We should always embrace desire.” Following your feelings is the only plausible reality. Yann Gonzalez’s LGBTQ characters are a direct quote from director Almodóvar, but his connections between desire, loneliness, death, and the unreachable essence of life, reminds us more to David Lynch.
Another Gonzalez’s work, Islands (2017), won the Queer Palm at Cannes Film Festival. It presents bolder sex scenes and uses violence and ugliness to portray the fear of attraction. The idea of every person being an island deeply is deeply linked to loneliness and desire once again.
