The Strange Colors of the Tears of your Body (film)

The 40^th Film festival of Ghent started today their 5^th day. Although I shared some little beautiful moments and very small conversations even with some Oscar winners (mostly about the dreadful Belgian weather, or about their country of origin), I feel I am running a marathon. Mental and physical. There is a lot of work behind the scenes, and it is interesting, but also exhausting.

In the last 5 days I had time (in the evening) to see two movies. Yesterday I saw the latest movie of Jeunet (director of Amélie Poulain), and also caught a glance from him. Several days ago, I was lucky to attend the Belgian premiere of the Walloon movie « 'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps » from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani.

Personally, I liked the movie. Sometimes you dislike a movie while watching, but the after effects can be really so interesting you start to like this movie more towards the end, and after, when you start to realize and understand scenes, shots, metaphors... you even like the movie. I also think that the movie will be even better when you see it a second, third... time because you'll link the motives with your interpretation much better.

This movie can be classified in the « giallo  genre ». It is not a film that every person will like. I think that 1% of the average cinema visitor will love this art full of horror and sex. 

Giallo cinema is erotic horror from Italy, very popular in the 70's, where elements
from crime thrillers and mystery are mixed in a very kitschy, baroque and bloody way. 

Yes, as in many giallo's, the film can be described as a dark dance between Eros (Love) and Tanathos (Death), with different motives, all referring to these two powers of life, and ending with a bright, contrasting white revelation of the core under all these layers. Some people think there is no meaning, just an close knit of beautiful images and horror. I saw this as a surreal movie ; like David Lynch movies, who belongs to the same blood family as this movie, there is some message or core hidden, sometimes very primal story, connected with themes that even prehistoric people knew.

If there is a story, it will start that an man comes back from a journey in his appartment from his house, and don't find his wife there. He starts a search in his house, and faces also the secrets of his neighbours and the house. Nightmares and reality got mixed up with each other in a visual interpretation of...

Ok, spoiler alert... of a young girl who lost her virginity. Or that is my interpretation. The motives of a knife between woman legs (shape of ovaria), the blood, the sex... it all seems connected. I am not sure if the young girl looses her virginiy ; it also can be the first time she gots her period. 

Still, I feel this is a story about a feminine theme  (don't forget one of the directors is also a woman; not that every movie by a female director is about feminity, but sometimes... it is...)

As in Mulholland Drive of David Lynch, I feel this movie happens in the head of a woman, who is physically not very present in the visuals, who experiences the powers of Eros and Tanathos. 

That's why the directors/writers used this genre, the editing technique with quick edits, very loud sound design and many extreme close-ups, to let us experience this transition as a nightmare ; a lot of passages are horrifying, certainly for young girls. I felt in a nightmare, but I enjoyed it, and not only because of the cinematography, but also because of the editing and the sound design.

In Flemish, I would call this movie « bloedmooi », which is translated as « blood beautiful ». Blood and sex are shown in a high stylized visual pearl, as a nightmare of a young girl experiencing death and love for the first time, and for sure not for the last time. Love and death, beginnings and endings... are part of life, not opposites of life...  certainly not death and horror.