MQFF REVIEW: You and the Night (2013, Dir. Yann Gonzalez)

Festival director, Lisa Daniel, introduced Yann Gonzalez's You and the Night (Les rencontres d'après minuit) as the queerest thing MQFF has shown in quite a while, and that pretty well sums up a film that actively defies simple summation.

My attempt would be: the world's most existential orgy.

A woman, her zombie lover and their trans gypsy maid collect together an orgy to fuel the sexual passion of their three way relationship. Their invitees, The Stud, The Slut, The Adolescent and The Star, lounge around the trio's stylishly furnished apartment, relate their stories and release their inner demons to a soundtrack by M83.

You and the Night's aesthetic aches listlessness. It is knowingly and pretentiously ridiculous but everyone gets in on the straight-faced fun, including ex-footballer Éric Cantona and his prodigious prosthetic member. As a director, Gonzalez is clearly a fan of Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, just not that film's thematic nastiness. In its place he shoots for the romantic and he's surprisingly effective amidst the relentless artifice.

There is no denying M83's soundtrack, spread liberally through the film via a sensory jukebox that plays music according to the operator's emotional state, plays a big part in that success. That's what you get when your brother heads up one of France's biggest musical exports. Thankfully, everyone who uses the little neon plate glass touchpad is in the mood for 80's synth-pop. It is an imposing soundtrack and gives the film an emotional grandeur to externalise the silent tears being shed on-screen.

You and the Night won't be for everyone but it's quite the ride, and one that almost had me in tears. Vive l'artwank!

★★★☆

Trailer:

You and the Night screened as part of the 2014 Melbourne Queer Film Festival.