Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Yann Gonzalez
Cast
Vanessa Paradis,
Nicolas Maury,
Kate Moran,
Jonathan Genet,
Romane Bohringer,
Khaled Alouach
Genre
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance
Paris, Summer 1979. Anne produces third-rate gay porn. After her editor and lover leaves her, Anne tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted sidekick Archibald. But one of her actors is brutally murdered and Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside-down.
The A.V. Club by Katie Rife
The gauzy cinematography also helps, as does the mise-en-scène, which poses Anne’s chosen family of proud perverts in studied tableaus reminiscent of the Renaissance masters. Only, you know, in a porno.
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
It is a film that will entice the viewer’s senses, if not necessarily their brain activity.
The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer
Knife hits you from its very first frame — and this is really a frame of celluloid and not a file of gigabytes — as a work engulfed in the pleasures of filmmaking's past.
Variety by Peter Debruge
Gonzalez has mastered the art of creating atmosphere and tone, but not tension, and the movie feels meandering and slow at times, since audiences are not invested in anyone’s survival.
IndieWire by David Ehrlich
For a giallo riff so light on gore, Knife + Heart is still a bloody mess.
The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd
Knife + Heart sometimes feels as rough around the edges and inelegantly plotted as its pornos-within-the-movie, but maybe that’s just conceptual consistency.
CineVue by Martyn Conterio
Gonzalez can be masterful in conjuring sexy imagery, febrile moods and erotic frissons, but his grip on the storytelling here is weak. Knife + Heart struggles to regain its initial momentum, falling flat until a lively climax.
Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen
The film quickly settles into a holding pattern of repetitive porno-movie hijinks and increasingly listless murder scenes.
Screen Daily by Tim Grierson
A film drunk on its own trashy, lurid aesthetic, Knife + Heart (Un Couteau Dans Le Coeur) has style to burn but not as much sense.
Screen International by Tim Grierson
A film drunk on its own trashy, lurid aesthetic, Knife + Heart (Un Couteau Dans Le Coeur) has style to burn but not as much sense.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It really is strange, a film with what is actually a pretty good premise for a comedy, but with no interest in actually being a comedy and also no interest in being a thriller, or even that mysterious erotic parable that it seems to be claiming to be.
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