Bertrand Bonello

Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and ’80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the ’60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques’s artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer’s ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself…Read More »

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Paul and Marguerite are a five years old couple. Their love is strong, deep, tragic… visceral. Paul wants to control things. Marguerite is more free…Read More »

A Chinese aphorism says that although the poet dreams he is a butterfly, it is perhaps instead the butterfly that dreams it has become a poet. In Le dos rouge, a famous filmmaker played by Bertrand Bonello searches for an image of the uncanny. An eccentric female art historian accompanies him through museums, where they examine and discuss numerous works of art. A metamorphosis gradually takes place, as red marks appear on the filmmaker’s back. It seems that gazing at all that monstrousness has brought about a transformation in the observer. Bonello, a victim of Stendhal Syndrome, gradually loses himself in his admiration of the sublime uncanny. When he is hypnotised by the artworks, he exudes a fascination as great as that of the objects themselves. It’s a pleasure to watch one artist gazing at another, for this film is a multi-layered mise en abyme. By creating a fictional portrait of an aesthete, Barraud subtly allows the paintings to enter into a dialogue with his newly created images. Artificiality meets art, and during the search for the ideal monster, a playful, aesthetic spell is cast.Read More »