Yann Gonzalez lingers in the shadows of passion

Film still of Un couteau dans le cœur (Knife + Heart) © RR

Five years after queer hybrid feature film You and the Night, Yann Gonzalez takes Vanessa Paradis on a journey through the gay porn scene of the 1970s, as a mysterious serial killer roams the shadows. Knife + Heart borrows from genre movies in this thrilling portrait of a woman in love.

Having caught the public's eye with a series of poppy surrealist shorts, Yann Gonzalez definitively made his mark as one of France's most exciting up-and-coming directors with 2013's You and the Night, set in a dreamlike, intimate world packed full of stylised references, and featuring a glittering cast of characters brimming with fantasies and melancholy. Infusing his film with a theatrical quality, the director introduced us to seven libertines who embarked on an orgy of existential monologues, rather than partaking in the erotic shenanigans they had initially been invited to enjoy.

In this series of portraits punctuated by flashbacks, Yann Gonzalez reasserted his penchant for glossy, poppy film with hints of Brian De Palma and Dario Argento. The poetic lyricism of the world he created was left free to shine through the screen, sometimes flirting on the fringes of Z-movie aesthetics, in which every last detail is meticulously handled, from the sometimes-crude dialogue to the highly stylised and artificial décors.

Love, sex, desire and death are shoved centre-stage yet again in Knife + Heart, an organic feature film that the director had hoped would feel classic and joyous in its narrative style. "I like the idea of extracting something out of the darkness," explains the director, who began his career as a film critic.

The film plunges Vanessa Paradis into the heart of the 1970s gay scene in Paris, at a time when sexual emancipation, social freedom and hedonism were rampant. The actor plays Anne, a low-budget porn producer who drowns her sorrows in violence and alcohol. Devastated by her film editor and partner Loïs' sudden departure, Anne decides to make an ambitious film to win her back. But a mysterious masked murderer is on the prowl, mercilessly killing off her actors one by one.

In Knife + Heart, Yann Gonzalez seeks to return to the concept of genre movies, and in particular to "visceral, highly choreographed murder stories". The feature film's cast includes Nicolas Amaury and Kate Moran, both of whom featured in You and the Night. The soundtrack comes courtesy of M83, with the frontman none other than the director's brother.