At the European premiere of Rose Glass's "Love Lies Bleeding" at the Berlinale, the filmmakers said that they wanted to make a very "American" movie. Indeed, there is plenty of play with the "American myth" here, from very American landscapes to ironic references to the "American dream."

              Here is the scene that opens the film: late evening, a highway, a sports club on the outskirts, as if cut off from the rest of the world - a play of light and darkness, a sense of a suspended moment, full of enormous inner tension at the same time... like a calm water surface hiding a dangerous undercurrent. The atmosphere is very reminiscent of David Lynch with his "Mulholland Drive" and "Highway to Nowhere", with such "nocturnal" urban landscapes. The exquisite apparent simplicity of the landscape (cinematographer Ben Fordsman) is reminiscent of Hopper's paintings - to whom Lynch's work also refers - adding another dimension to the film.

              And so, on this canvas, a dramatic, sometimes parodic, love story between two girls - gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) and bodybuilder Jackie (Katie M. O'Brien) - is played out. The story is queer-feminist to the extreme: two women in love are up against the whole world, while the male world is represented by negative characters: the heroine's sinister father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) is a western villain (another cultural reference! ); sadistic and womanizing JJ (Dave Franco), the husband of Lou's sister, whose brutal murder is perceived as a well-deserved punishment; and finally, the clumsy, corrupt detective... To survive (sometimes literally) in such a man's world, a woman must be strong - and here, as is common in contemporary masculinity, this idea is embodied all too literally. Lou is tough, as unfeminine as possible (emphasized by the contrast with the silly blonde model Daisy who is in love with her), and she can handle both her rough contingent and her father, a local criminal mastermind. Jackie is a bodybuilder, the ultimate embodiment of a physically strong, trained body.

          This super-strong, super-trained body is her superpower and her ticket to her own version of the American Dream: to win a bodybuilding competition and build her brilliant career on it... However, flirting with the viewer's expectations, the filmmakers do not always satisfy them. This is one of the key techniques of film strategy: the title of the film itself is emphatically exploitative - indeed, what can "turn on" a mass audience more than love and lies, generously flavored with blood? The authors rethink and mix genres, not forgetting to flavor everything with humor, darkly crazy, like the whole action. Lou keeps trying to quit smoking... but how can you quit when you have to confront your evil father, rescue your beloved from trouble, and deal with an unwanted witness?

          The film takes place in the 80s, and the spirit of the times - or at least its subtle stylization - adds a light retro sound, becoming an integral part of the film's atmosphere. Music, the cult of the athletic body, greedy enjoyment of life, excess, and finally, playing with kitsch aesthetics... The most complete expression of the latter is the film's climactic scene: Jackie, having become a giantess, carries her beloved Lou away in the pink morning light... Because, first of all, the movie is about love, and only then about bloodshed.

Just as the title promises. The main thing is not to take these promises too seriously, because the film, again in the spirit of the 80s, is quite postmodern. It plays with the viewer, allows him to enjoy himself while calculating the next plot developments, and then throws almost surreal images in his face. Despite its blatantly queer and feminist themes, it offers purely spectatorial pleasure: from Kristen Stewart's brilliant performance, from the sculptural beauty of Katie O'Brien, from the intricacies of the plot (no matter how many you can guess), from Ben Fordsman's cinematic landscapes. This is its strength... And the strength of director Rose Glass, another strong female cinematic voice.