A group of strangers gather for an orgy in Yann Gonzalez’s YOU AND THE NIGHT
YOU AND THE NIGHT (LES RENCONTRES D’APRÈS-MINUIT) (Yann Gonzalez, 2013)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, March 15, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through April 26
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org
An orgy doesn’t go quite as planned in Yann Gonzalez’s dark, lurid, and silly directorial debut, You and the Night. The erotic tragicomedy evokes the films of Derek Jarman along with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and, primarily, Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus as seven characters gather one evening for a night of debauchery in the name of love, desperate to fill the gaps in their sad lives. “It’s our secret vice. A little break from the eternal, maddening class struggle,” the Star (Fabienne Babe) tells a pair of cops who show up looking for a runaway boy. The party is hosted by trans gypsy maid Udo (Nicolas Maury); the other guests are Ali (Kate Moran), an older woman joined by her younger lover, Matthias (Niels Schneider); the Stud (soccer star Éric Cantona), who boasts of his enormous manhood (and then proves it); the Teen (Alain Fabien Delon, son of French screen idol Alain Delon), who has not developed his own identity yet; and the Slut (Julie Brémond), who can’t wait to do anyone and everyone. Over the course of the night, they share their dreams, relate their pasts, and search for love, set to a score by French electronic band M83, which is led by Anthony Gonzalez, Yann’s brother. The movie’s supposed to be dreamy and poetic, but instead it’s cold and artificial, often bathed in an unfeeling blue light that furthers the distance between the characters and the audience. It’s often hard to tell what’s supposed to be “real” and what’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, although Béatrice Dalle’s cameo as a whip-touting commissioner is, well, it just is. You and the Night is screening in FIAF’s “EDM Anthems: French Touch on Film” series on March 15 at 4:00 and 7:30; the series continues on Tuesdays through April 26 with such other films as Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, and Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood, which are either set in the club scene or feature EDM-based soundtracks.