Les Amants Criminels (1999)

Criminal Lovers

Francois Ozon’s highly sexualized take on highschool romance, the 1990’s obsession with boy/girl criminal movies (True Romance/Natural Born Killers) and the Hansel and Gretel myth with some Disney cliche-fuck sprinkled in. There is a lot going on in this movie.

Basic plot is that a teenage girl Alice convinces her boyfriend Luc to kill a classmate of theirs (Said) because (she claims) he raped her. She seduces Said into a locker room showers at school and Luc stabs him to death. They plan to dispose of his body in the woods, after burying him in a shallow grave, they cannot find their way back to their car. A “Night of the Hunter” referencing boat trip down the river later and they stumble upon a small cabin. They barge in, and like selfish little piggies start eating everything in sight. The resident returns home and, shotgun in hand, forces them into the basement.

In the basement they find the body of Said that the Hermit/Ogre has unearthed, it becomes clear that he is going fatten up Luc, starve Alice, and eventually eat them both. Alice must stay in the basement, but Luc is allowed out for the Hermit to force into some hot man on man action. Yes, this movie is weird and twisted and sexually sketchy, but it works. It works great, this movie is pretty brilliant. The shotgun wielding, cannibalistic, gay predator, grave robbing hermit/ogre is the most sympathetic character in the whole movie. Awesome.

This movie has bloody murder, cannibalism, black humor, transgressive sex, the whole deal!

I don’t know what else to say. F. Ozon strikes again, this one is good.

It receives the John Waters seal of approval!