KinoTopia 056 - Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, 2024)
Love is a tricky thing.
We had a jumbled week with the screening of Stephen Sayadian's Dr. Caligari, and our accompanying Q and A with Daniel Bird, but today we bring you a delayed edition of KinoTopia featuring Revan Oluklu’s review of Love Lies Bleeding.
Highlights for the upcoming listings include Unknown Pleasures with Richard Lowenstein at Thornbury Picture House, the French Film Festival at Palace Cinemas and the Palestinian Film Festival at cinema Nova.
Love Lies Bleeding
Rose Glass
DCP Courtesy: A24
Classification: MA15+
Playing in most good arthouse cinemas in Melbourne.
Words by Revan Oluklu
Love Lies Bleeding, the romantic thriller from writer-director Rose Glass, opens with a sequence evoking the nocturnal stylings of Michael Mann, blended with the monolithic cosmic spirituality of Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy (2018). We’re rapidly immersed in a world where love and death dance together in a hauntingly cognate choreography. The film centres on Lou and Jackie, two female characters who Glass ensures cut unique, albeit somewhat unfilled cinematic figures. From what we learn, Lou (Kristen Stewart) is entangled in a dangerous web of familial abuse, from her sinister father, the local crime boss Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), to her sister Beth (Jenna Malone) being a battered wife to her abusive husband, JJ (Dave Franco). Blood red psychic memory-visions gradually reveal that Lou once served as her father’s underworld understudy—a hands-on criminal operator who knows both killing and cover up. Jackie is introduced as a homeless “big girl” wandering New Mexico in search of a job, a place to stay and a gym to train at. While Jackie is ostensibly preparing for a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas, she’s also running from her own family. Her religious Olkahoman parents demean her bisexuality, estranging Jackie from a sibling she would otherwise be close to. Both characters possess barely repressed anger from their thorny familial relationships. When Jackie first waltzes into the gym Lou manages for her father, Lou’s acutely lascivious gaze trains on her as she pumps various muscles. It only takes moments for their first conversation to reveal a ferocious mutual desire, and a recklessness that portends later events.
Stewart and O'Brian deliver tour de force performances, embodying the film's themes with a raw intensity that is as unsettling as it is captivating. Despite the ferocity of their love and the increasingly complex criminal drama it causes, the characters remain distinctly vivid without being cartoonish. This is the sharpest aspect of Glass’ work with co-writer Weronika Tofilska: while the stakes rise catastrophically, their characters remain true to themselves, making believably ill-advised and rash choices. Yet the repeated escalations allow Lou to demonstrate her preternatural ability to carve a path back to Jackie. Stewart shines in her portrayal of a woman consumed by love as a form of escape from a demented family, while O'Brian's performance is equally compelling as a comparably immature woman driven to extremes by the dominance of her desires. Audiences will be struck by the fidelity of the fear Stewart conjures, alongside anxious improvisation and fierce eroticism in her combustible romance with Jackie. Likewise, in O’Brian’s commitment to Jackie’s physical transformation, Glass finds the bodybuilding beau idéal—a woman whose towering physique inspires simultaneous awe and terror. Lou’s is a love of protective service, while Jackie is driven by the will to impress, hoping to mitigate a buried sense of inadequacy. Together, the palpable chemistry of the film’s leads gives potent force to the cliché of explosive queer lust and love.
In dressing her neon gothic crime odyssey in noir trappings, Glass imbues Lou and Jackie’s same-sex attraction with provocations toward the genre’s history. A distinctive trope of traditional film noir is the femme fatale—a seductive, mysterious woman who lures the male protagonist into danger. Love Lies Bleeding reconfigures and complicates this crux by rendering Lou, the film’s equivalent to a typical noir hero—a solitary, disillusioned man—a woman. Far from straightforwardly falling victim to her femme fatale, Lou is certainly culpable in the development of Jackie’s steroid addiction. Glass does not cheaply do away with masculinity however. Both characters have male names with Lou’s deriving from her father, framing her Oedipal struggle against him. Lou is recalcitrant to ‘open up’ to Jackie, who develops into a fascinating inversion of an archetypal contemporary male: dependent, narcissistic and abusive. Both women experience severe bouts of jealousy, which they handle with characteristic male petulance. Unlike conventional noirs, Glass irreverently denies the audience a damsel in distress, instead pitting Lou and Jackie directly against each other at times, while also forcing them to rely on each other. In this way, the film embodies its characters’ struggle with their own vulnerabilities and the masculinity of the other—a quest to actualise Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of authentic love, which must be reciprocal and non-exploitative.
Glass never slips into celebrating Lou and Jackie’s love as a categorical good. What Love Lies Bleeding lacks in the way of character ontogeny (or, the developmental history of an organism within its lifetime), it compensates with scintillatingly rendered sexuality—not merely its productive nature, but also its destructive potential. On their first night together, Lou gets Jackie hooked on steroids to boost her prospects of triumph, setting into motion the turbulent events of the film’s plot. If Beauvoir’s suggestion that “the body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project” is correct, then Jackie’s swelling, muscular body is the film’s tableaux. By the time Lou and Jackie find themselves tending to Lou’s sister (Beth) in hospital after a particularly grotesque beating at the hands of her husband (JJ), Jackie’s body is pulsating with juice, unable to contain the rage within. In a morbid transference of her burning love of Lou, Jackie acts where the police refuse to, crushing JJ’s skull against his coffee table, cleaving his face. Jackie’s visual dominion over the mangled corpse evokes Georges Bataille’s notion of the intimate connection between death and eroticism, both representing ultimate transgressions against the limits of oneself and those imposed by society. By murdering JJ out of devotion to Lou, Jackie creates a transcendent continuity that dissolves the boundaries between the two lovers. After recoiling in understandable disgust at the gruesome sight of JJ’s now split face, Lou moves swiftly into enginous corpse-disposal mode, echoing her past. As such, Jackie’s vigilante justice is transformed into a moment of sublime unity, creating the space for a potentially liberated future together.
The rest of the film takes place in this state of profound instability, as Lou and Jackie move in and out of each other's lives while desperately attempting to elude both the wrath of Lou’s father (Lou Sr.) and law enforcement. Herein lies the playful genre-trappings employed by Glass, who never allows us to feel confident that the pair will emerge together, much less with their liberty intact. Glass zeroes in on a particular motivational slogan—“Destiny is a decision”—like many plastered across the walls of the gym where our lovers meet. With this and similar literalisations, Glass reveals her film’s Nietzschean aspect: the notorious philosopher’s concept of “Amor Fati”, latin for “love of fate”. Despite her discomfort with her past, Lou’s expert criminality is integral to crafting the couple’s potential escape. One of the film’s most arresting visuals is the abyssal canyon out in the desert, used by the Lous as a dumping ground for dead bodies. Like Bataille, Glass suggests that by “leaning out over deranged horror [...] The abyss is the foundation of the possible”. In using this same abyss to bring to light her father’s criminality, Lou embraces her fate past and present, manifesting her strength of character against Jackie’s corporeal power. What Love Lies Bleeding implies is that while herculean, Jackie’s violent roid rage and rodomontade are forms of dissimulation. Her rescue by Lou demonstrates that true might is found within.
Further Reading:
Bataille, Georges. Erotism: Death and Sensuality (1957).
Bataille, Georges. Guilty (1988).
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex (1949).
Kirkpatrick, Kate. "Love is a joint project" (2020). Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/simone-de-beauvoirs-authentic-love-is-a-project-of-equals.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (1908).
WEEKLY FILM LISTINGS
February 29 - March 4
Matinees
Variety
Bette Gordon, 1983
Screening Fri, Sat, Sun
Best of 2023
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan, 2023
Screening Sat 9 March
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Sun 10 March
New Voices in Australian Cinema
Australian Shorts
Various filmmakers
Screening Tue
No screening this week
ASTOR CINEMA
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
+
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Thur, Fri, Sat
Oppenheimer (Special 70mm presentation)
Christopher Nolan, 2023
Screening Sunday
All of us Strangers
Andrew Haigh, 2023
+
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947
Screening Sunday
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Robert Altman, 1971
+
Inside Llewyn Davis
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2013
Screening Monday
BBBC CINEMA (GALLERYGALLERY BRUNSWICK)
Uncertain whether it will return (you’ll be the first to hear)
Rebels – Photograhy
Palema Meyer-Arndt, 2022
+
Beauty Decay
Annekatrin Hendel, 2019
Free double feature from 1pm
CHINATOWN CINEMA
Yolo
Jia Ling, 2024
Screening Thur - Wed
Article 20
Zhang Yimou, 2024
Screening Tues
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Haruo Sotozaki, 2023
Screening Mon
The Moon Thieves
Kim-Wai Yuen, 2024
Screening Sunday
Rob N Roll
Albert Mak, 2024
Screening Wed
Table For Six II
Sunny Chan, 2022
Screening Thurs
Pegasus II
Han Han, 2024
Screening Friday
CINÉ-CLUB (Carlton)
No screening this week
No screening this week
Palestinian Film Festival 2024.
Tix and program available here
Previewing
Love Lies Bleeding
Rose Glass, 2024
Screening Fri
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Anna Hints, 2023
Screening Friday
In season
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker, 2023
Screening Daily
The Great Escaper
Oliver Parker, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Subtraction
Mani Haghighi, 2022
Screening Daily
Club Zero
Jessica Hauser, 2023
Screening Daily
Four Daughters
Kaouther Ben Hania, 2023
Screening Daily
Drive Away Dolls
Ethan Coen, 2024
Screening Daily
The Rooster
Mark Leonard Winter, 2023
Screening Daily
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Screening Daily
Fallen Leaves
Aki Kaurismäki, 2023
Screening Daily
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Robert Connolly, 2023
Screening Daily
Bob Marley: One Love
Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2023
Screening Daily
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Ariane Louis-Seize, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune Part I
Denis Villeneuve, 2021
Screening daily
May December
Todd Haynes, 2023
Screening Daily
Riceboy Sleeps
Anthony Shim, 2024
Screening Daily
The Colour Purple
Blitz Bazawule, 2023
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Daily
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, 2023
Screening Daily
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin, 2023
Screening Daily
All of Us Strangers
Andrew Haigh, 2023
Screening Daily
Ferrari
Michael Mann, 2023
Screening Daily
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne, 2023
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Daily
Dream Scenario
Kristoffer Borgli, 2023
Screening Daily
Next Goal Wins
Taika Waititi, 2023
Screening Daily
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Daily
Coup de Chance
Woody Allen, 2023
Screening Daily
One Life
James Hawes, 2023
Screening Daily
Maestro
Bradley Cooper, 2023
Limited Screenings
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki, 2023
Screening Daily
Napoleon
Ridley Scott, 2023
Limited
Saltburn
Emerald Fennell, 2023
Limited
Past Lives
Celine Song, 2023
Limited
Barbie
Greta Gerwig, 2023
Limited
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan, 2023
Limited
DOGMILK DEGUSTATIONS: @ Miscellania
No screening this week
FOMO CINEMAS BRUNSWICK EAST
The Great Escaper
Oliver Parker, 2023
Screening Daily
Love Lies Bleeding
Rose Glass, 2024
Screening Fri
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Dune: Part 1
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Bob Marley: One Love
Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2023
Screening Daily
Argylle
Matthew Vaughn, 2024
Screening Daily
The Colour Purple
Blitz Bazawule, 2023
Screening Daily
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Robert Connolly, 2023
Screening Daily
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, 2023
Screening Daily
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin, 2023
Screening Daily
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne, 2023
Screening Daily
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Daily
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki, 2023
Screening Daily
Closed for the semester
GAY24 (Bar Flippy’s)
No screening this week
HITLIST (9 Gertrude St, Fitzroy)
No screening this week
Europa!Europa! Film Festival tix on sale and program available here
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Subtraction
Mani Haghighi, 2022
Screening Daily
Club Zero
Jessica Hauser, 2023
Screening Daily
Four Daughters
Kaouther Ben Hania, 2023
Screening Daily
Drive Away Dolls
Ethan Coen, 2024
Screening Daily
The Rooster
Mark Leonard Winter, 2023
Screening Daily
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Screening Daily
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Ariane Louis-Seize, 2023
Screening Daily
Bob Marley: One Love
Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2023
Screening Daily
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Robert Connolly, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune Part I
Denis Villeneuve, 2021
Screening daily
May December
Todd Haynes, 2023
Screening Daily
Riceboy Sleeps
Anthony Shim, 2024
Screening Daily
Argylle
Matthew Vaughn, 2024
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Daily
The Colour Purple
Blitz Bazawule, 2023
Screening Daily
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, 2023
Screening Daily
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin, 2023
Screening Daily
All of Us Strangers
Andrew Haigh, 2023
Screening Daily
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne, 2023
Screening Daily
Mean Girls
Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr., 2024
Screening Daily
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Daily
Anyone but You
Will Gluck, 2023
Screening Daily
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki, 2023
Screening Daily
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese, 2023
Limited Screenings
OVA CLUB
No screening this week
THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE (ACMI)
Caesar Must Die
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 2012
+
Kaos
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1984
Screening Wed 13 March
TOP OF THE HEAP (Tramway Hotel)
No screening this week
MELBOURNE HORROR FILM SOCIETY @ LONG PLAY (North Fitzroy)
No screening this week
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: SCREENING IDEAS
The Settlers
Felipe Gálvez, 2023
Screening Thursday 7 March
PALACE BALWYN / BRIGHTON / COMO / KINO / PENTRIDGE / MOONEE PONDS / WESTGARTH
French Film Festival Starts March 6
Program Here
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker, 2023
Screening Daily
The Great Escaper
Oliver Parker, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Subtraction
Mani Haghighi, 2022
Screening Daily
Club Zero
Jessica Hauser, 2023
Screening Daily
Four Daughters
Kaouther Ben Hania, 2023
Screening Daily
Drive Away Dolls
Ethan Coen, 2024
Screening Daily
The Rooster
Mark Leonard Winter, 2023
Screening Daily
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Screening Daily
Fallen Leaves
Aki Kaurismäki, 2023
Screening Daily
Bob Marley: One Love
Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2024
Screening from Valentine’s Day
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Robert Connolly, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune Part I
Denis Villeneuve, 2021
Screening daily
May December
Todd Haynes, 2023
Screening Daily
Riceboy Sleeps
Anthony Shim, 2024
Screening Daily
Argylle
Matthew Vaughn, 2024
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Daily
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, 2023
Screening Daily
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin, 2023
Screening Daily
All of Us Strangers
Andrew Haigh, 2023
Screening Daily
Ferrari
Michael Mann, 2023
Screening Daily
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne, 2023
Screening Daily
Dream Scenario
Kristoffer Borgli, 2023
Screening Daily
Next Goal Wins
Taika Waititi, 2023
Screening Daily
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Daily
One Life
James Hawes, 2023
Screening Daily
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki, 2023
Screening Daily
Trash Night Presents: The Unknown
Tod Browning, 1927
Screening Thursday 7 March @ Static Vision HQ
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker, 2023
Screening Daily
The Great Escaper
Oliver Parker, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Drive Away Dolls
Ethan Coen, 2024
Screening Daily
The Rooster
Mark Leonard Winter, 2023
Screening Daily
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Screening Daily
Force of Nature: The Dry 2
Robert Connolly, 2023
Screening Daily
Dune Part I
Denis Villeneuve, 2021
Screening daily
Bob Marley: One Love
Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2024
Screening Daily
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Ariane Louis-Seize, 2023
Screening Daily
May December
Todd Haynes, 2023
Screening Daily
Riceboy Sleeps
Anthony Shim, 2024
Screening Daily
Argylle
Matthew Vaughn, 2024
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Daily
The Colour Purple
Blitz Bazawule, 2023
Screening Daily
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, 2023
Screening Daily
The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin, 2023
Screening Daily
All of Us Strangers
Andrew Haigh, 2023
Screening Daily
Ferrari
Michael Mann, 2023
Screening Daily
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne, 2023
Screening Daily
Mean Girls
Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr., 2024
Screening Daily
Dream Scenario
Kristoffer Borgli, 2023
Screening Daily
Next Goal Wins
Taika Waititi, 2023
Screening Daily
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Daily
One Life
James Hawes, 2023
Screening Daily
Anyone But You
Will Gluck, 2023
Screening Daily
Two Tickets to Greece
Marc Fitoussi, 2022
Screening Daily
Wonka
Paul Knight, 2023
Screening Daily
The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki, 2023
Screening Daily
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker, 2023
Screening Daily exc Tuesday
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Screening Sat + Sun
Dune: Part 2
Denis Villeneuve, 2024
Screening Daily
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan, 2023
Screening Monday and Wednesday
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023
Screening Monday
UNKNOWN PLEASURES (Bill Mousoulis + Chris Luscri + Digby Houghton)
Meet the…Lowensteins (Richard Lowenstein Double Bill)
Tix available here
Evictions
Richard Lowenstein, 1979
+
Don’t Be Too Polite Girls
Yet to be released!
Screening Tuesday 12 March @ 6:30pm
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