Two American newlyweds in Paris experience a love so strong, it almost devours them in this erotic horror from director Claire Denis.

With its gory, visually arresting style, Trouble Every Day shocked and upset audiences at its 2001 Cannes Film Festival debut for its graphic depictions of carnal lust as a cannibalistic disease. Premiering at midnight out of competition, the film was reportedly met with booing, walk-outs, and, most scandalously, two women in the audience fainted, inserting it into an infamous history of films so distressing that an ambulance was called.

Named after a Frank Zappa song, the film follows American newlyweds Shane and June Brown (Vincent Gallo and Tricia Vessey) to Paris on their honeymoon. Once there, Shane begins a search for his former colleague Leo (Alex Descas), who might be in possession of a cure to a tropical virus that has transformed both Shane and Leo’s wife (Béatrice Dalle) into ravenous sexual cannibals. As Claire Denis’s most maligned project to date, Trouble Every Day, has proven ripe for critical reexamination through the lens of the auteur’s subsequent projects. The film features gorgeous cinematography by the great Agnès Godard and soundtrack by regular Denis collaborators, the Tindersticks.

Screened in French and English with English subtitles.

Claire Denis  |  France/Germany/Japan  |  2001  |  102 minutes