Carnages
(2002)
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After a young bullfighter is injured, the bull responsible is killed. The animal is dismembered, it's body parts parcelled up and dispatched across Europe. The story then follows the various parts of the bull as it's bones go to a supermarket where an actress sells one to a couple who give it to their daughter. The eyes go to a scientist and his wife. The horns find their way to a taxidermist and it's steaks to a restaurant. |
Acclaimed shorts director Delphine Gleize allows ambition to get the better of her in a feature debut that seeks to link seamlessly several tenuously connected stories only to end up shortchanging them all. The unifying factor is a bull that gores matador Julien Lescarret before being slaughtered and having its carcass dispatched into the orbit of, among others, struggling Italian actress Chiara Mastroianni, guilt-ridden Spaniard Angela Molina, adulterous French scientist Jacques Gamblin and hyper-imaginative child Raphaëlle Molinier. Gleize invests the diverse scenarios with arch significance, but the majority are inconsequential, while others come perilously close to being ridiculous.