Carnage
Release Date:
September 5, 2003
Limited release
They always say don’t judge a book by its cover. They also say don’t judge a movie by its title. This definitely sounds like one of those situations. I thought that this was going to be some disaster/horror movie. I was so wrong.
This French offering was directed and written by Delphine Gleize, making her feature film debut. The premise of this film is quite interesting. After a bull is killed during a bullfight by a matador (who also happens to be gored in the process), its body is divided up and sent across Europe. We follow the lives of the people who are the recipients of the various parts.
Among the people we see are an Italian actress (Chiara Mastroianni) selling the bones in a grocery store promotion, a taxidermist (Jacques Gamblin) whose wife is giving birth to quintuplets, a little girl (Raphaelle Molinier) from Northern France who has a vivid imagination, and a Spanish woman (Angela Molina) who has some nice bull steaks for dinner.
This movie has been receiving quite a bit of critical acclaim since its world premiere at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard). It has won awards already, including the Prix SACD screenwriting award at the 2002 Avignon Film Festival. (Marty Doskins/BOP)