Despite the Night (2015) User Reviews

Disturbing

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 19 June 2018]

Forget about the nudity if you can and the sexuality in general. This is about more. This is about the human psyche about addiction, about fulfillment and about trying to find meaning, but also getting off as much as possible. And to do that, going to extremes. These are some very troubled individuals we get to see here.

They are not really likeable and you may have a hard time getting on the bandwagon and watching the whole thing. But it does make sense and the characters are "well" drawn (and also drawn to each other and to many other things, mostly ugly ones). I myself wouldn't say I loved watching this, but I do acknowledge that it tries to be different and it is quite "experimental", but not too much

Overlong Arthouse Garbage!!!!

[perfectx-71415 · 1/10 · 20 April 2022]

I would say this was the most boring and painful arthouse movie I've ever seen but That honor goes to Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle. If this movie was only a couple more hours long it would have actually beat it because almost nothing, and I repeat nothing happens in this movie! It's agonizingly slow, unbelievably boring and excruciatingly long. Yes this do happen but trust me it's not worth you sitting through this. Because I guarantee you would have mentally checked out of this film by the hour and a half mark. And trust me the little that happens won't stick with you. Hell i dare you to even stick with this story enough to even understand the ending. I can say this, the movie is shot beautifully. It's almost got an unworldly feel to it. And there's quite a bit of sexy nudity going on here. Besides that this movie panders and plods till you can't sit and watch any longer. This is an endurance tester my friends. Get your watches out because you'll be looking at it quite a bit waiting till this mercifully ends!

Incoherent mess!

[tudor_009 · 1/10 · 2 June 2016]

If I will scrawl some weird forms on canvas trying to imitate what Picasso was doing I can fool many untrained eyes. But it would still be rubbish. I saw this film yesterday at TIFF .15 and I must say I felt insulted. I watched many independent movies and this is the first one that made me exit the cinema. A very disturbing feeling was growing on me, the feeling that some frauds are scamming and mocking the indie lovers (not art film consumers, but indie lovers, there's a difference). I actually searched for the director and watched an interview with him about the film, hoping it was just me having a bad mood. His discourse/monologue was brutal, it seems like he couldn't even write a coherent YouTube comment, and that's me resisting the temptation of spiteful remarks. No wonder empty and bad acted 15 mins scenes were evoking 15 year old pseudo philosophy. The problem? I'll cite some smarter people than me who said: "There are, bluntly, too many lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad movies pouring into theaters, distracting the entertainment media and, more important, overwhelming the audience." Please note this was written about the Independent Movie Industry, not about Hollywood.

Malgré la nuit, the light shines through night...

[Velrias · 10 September 2017]

Malgré la nuit

Silence

Redemption

In my mind, Malgré la nuit has made a nest; it is there..

Grandrieux's film, one notices straight away, is very delicately handled, regardless of the subject matter

The film exists in a dark, conceptual nightmare for it's inhabitants; a psychotic and weary, harrowed existence

The characters are crowded in by blank space, dark matter, trying to reach for the light, but succumbed to the night. The environment is claustrophobic, tight, reflecting their mindset; there is no outside living world, merely an underworld; the characters move silently through the black fog like wraiths, the living dead; demented, torturous, but trying to grasp at the threads of their existence

Grandrieux casts a spell, he conjures a mystical energy; he shrouds the world in darkness, a fugue

Hopeless

The characters wonder through this nightmarish landscape, without knowing their future, without knowing anything, merely pray to the night

There is a dark, strange atmosphere here..an almost magical dreamscape; accented more through the parts of abstraction and layers, the singer, who words become her life; they rumble around her, they rumble in the environment; they shatter the screen and all the lives of these characters

The characters engage in small episodes of love and passion, but, it is only a small act against the backdrop of corruption and destruction

Bodies float and linger; old bodies, young bodies; bodies blindly sharp and clear, float off, into a dark vortex of nothingness, out of focus, gone. Grandrieux grabs our soul through bodies, between bodies, the space between us, bodies it; shining souls lost in an apocalyptic world

Malgré la nuit is a land scape for the desolation of the soul

The brutal forging of sadomasochistic dreams, desire; nasty, primal; man revealed as an animal, primordial aggression and anger Extreme close-ups, blurred; the shaking of human life in it's darkest state; desolate; the evaporation of the soul; suicidal, self-destructive

Yet, at times, through all this hate, annihilation, there is hope in this twirled web of black life; moments of beauty, euphoric moments; passion overbears. Lenz and the characters must fight against the overcoming tide of darkness.

Moments lost in time, an elemental scene of beauty in song

Angst, passion, tears; throbbing sounds into the opaque, somber landscape and soundscape Astral, primal, entities, bodies, shifting shapes; the divine, eternal, elysian

As much as anything, Malgré la nuit reveals the dark undergrowth of the world like Irreversible; the dark twilight state where goodness sleeps, and the evil dark reigns Paris is transformed into an otherworldly dimension

The power of love elevates, but also chains us, bring us to our knees in our mind, for the passion burns in us like a ferocious fire, love potentially leading us into black, toxic flames; for we throw ourselves to the flames; we must fall and let ourselves fall to reach calm stillness.

As much as finding others, it is a journey for Lenz and the others to find their soul, themselves; a celestial taking, celestial beings

Beauty, love; to love so strongly is a force of power...

"Everything fades, even suffering, everything disappears"

Terror

The fish is used as an analogy, yet is no less profound; the fish, moves slowly, only thinks about moving around the box; caved in, yet ultimately fulfilled. If we slowed like fish, perhaps life would be easier. They think about only on thing, are clearer in mind; they can live happily, yet this is impossible for humanity, as we are too far past forward As the character says, because we know we're going to die, and the fish doesn't.

Malgré la nuit is an intense, cathartic experience; a blinding astonishing light, a profound shock

Through the darkness, there is still poignancy and humanity; in the face of brutality

For Grandrieux, there is hope here, perhaps one of his most hopeful films; there is hope for our characters, light notes upon a dark sonata

It is also a spiritual undertaking, more so one of the most spiritual films for Grandriex

Despite The Night, there is light and beauty; cries and screams thunder through the night, fire, yet colors of ochre gold and light will shine....