(star)(star) 1/2
Direct from last year’s Chicago Gay and Lesbian Film Festival comes “Criminal Lovers,” a French import that starts out as a “killers on the run” movie and gradually evolves into a Brothers Grimm — and very grim — fairytale.
The disturbing tale revolves around a pretty and pretty-screwed-up young girl named Alice (the talented Natacha Regnier, from “Dreamlife of Angels”), who gets her kicks from controlling her dimwitted but obedient boyfriend, Luc (Jeremie Renier from “LaPromesse”). But Alice really has the hots for the swarthy Said (Salim Kechiouche), who isn’t shy about hitting on her in the hallways at school. This seems to annoy the unpredictable Alice, who fabricates a story about a brutal gang rape to cow Luc into killing Said, with a knife, in the shower, with blood spurting everywhere.
But as gruesome as this incident is, the tale gets even more perverse when the two of them hide out in the forest and are captured by a hairy woodsman who decides to sexually “initiate” the shy virgin Luc while Alice is forced to live underground with the rats.
One has to admire the audacity of writer-director Francois Ozon, who borrows freely from other movies to help craft this warped morality play (his most obvious influence is Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”). Does the audacity pay off? That depends on how much you can stomach.
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“Criminal Lovers” opens Friday at Facets Multimedia. Running time: 1:30. No MPAA rating (not for children). In French with English subtitles.
