Love Lies Bleeding (and Yet Still Somehow is Alive and Well)

While my other essays tend to run on the medium-to-long side, this one might break the general rule and run shorter, as I’m currently sick. However, I feel like I can’t watch another film until I’ve written some thoughts on the last one I saw, Love Lies Bleeding.

In case you don’t want to click on the Wikipedia page, it stars Kirsten Stewart and Katy O’Brian, and premiered at the Sundance Festival earlier this year. One of the best parts of seeing movies at Sundance is the unique audience energy in the theater when a film premieres, and I feel like seeing this there would have been a treat. I had to see this movie on a laptop screen since Love Lies Bleeding had finished its theatrical run, and one of my first thoughts even before the movie’s first act was over was, “I can’t wait for the ten-year anniversary of this when it’s hopefully released in theaters again, so I can see this as it was meant to be seen.”

I’m not automatically one to suggest that all movies must be seen on the big screen by default — you can still feel the power of a film even watching it in your iphone (obviously). But I do feel like viewing Love Lies Bleeding on the largest screen possible helps a viewer more fully experience the movie’s aesthetic and atmosphere, which I found to be so well-executed.

I feel like you can get a sense of the movie’s unique energy through its use of light and color to create an atmosphere that grabs you even just from seeing the trailer. Partly thanks to director Rose Glass’ well-designed shots, and Ben Fordesman’s cinematography I’d call haunting in some respects, I feel like some of these images from the movie almost cast a spell over you.

*Image from Love Lies Bleeding [A24 | Film 4]*

*Jackie (Katy O'Brian) in Love Lies Bleeding [A24 | Film 4 | Anna Kooris]*

*Dave Franco, Jena Malone, Katy O'Brian, and Kirsten Stewart during the production of Love Lies Bleeding [Anna Kooris]*

The third one isn’t even a scene from the movie — I think it’s a still snapped in between takes (you can see the extras wearing masks in the back!). That said, just from looking at these images, it feels like the people in charge of everything you see on camera are firing on all cylinders. Looking at just the last still for a few minutes, I feel like even casual film fans would be able to tell that everyone in the lighting, costume, makeup, and production design departments (etc.) have done their homework. And I’ve got to take a quick moment to acknowledge Ben Fordesman’s cinematography again. Seeing stills from the film one after the other on Film Grab really gave me a sense of how the movie achieved a particular mood and tone through the use of color and lighting.

But in spite of what the evidence might suggest, I didn’t write this essay to discuss the film’s technical merits. I wanted to write about this film because I was genuinely touched by the relationship between Kristen Stewart’s Lou and Katy O’Brian’s Jackie. I was touched by the tenderness they expressed toward one another, while also seeming like a real couple, bickering and pushing each other and getting on each other’s nerves in a way that added depth to their relationship and characters. They seemed like real people, and it was cool seeing two women fall in love, and be in love, without it being A Thing. Even though this took place thirty-five years ago, at a time when it was more of a risk for people to come out and live as gay, that Lou and Jackie fall in love and are together is just the most natural thing in the world here. It feels right, thanks to the screenplay, and the performances, and Rose Glass’ assured direction, and I would like to suspect a general understanding that we’ve moved far enough past the point in culture and society where two women living and loving together onscreen doesn’t have to seem weird, or draw attention to itself. Lou and Jackie’s relationship feels like the most natural part of Love Lies Bleeding, and it’s everything else that happens around them that’s so unnatural, and makes their world dangerous — but none of this in any way relates to their relationship at all, which is the whole point. In this film, nothing makes Lou and Jackie’s relationship forbidden, there’s no individual or societal obstacle to their love, and it’s like, why would there be? These two people can just be people. They can fall in love with whomever they want.

From a character standpoint, Lou and Jackie in this film are both flawed people, yet act heroically. They’re far from perfect, yet you root from them (at least I did). There’s many different aspects to their personalities. They seem like pretty comprehensive human beings, which is something I feel we’ve struggled to see in movies over the decades, especially in terms of the portrayal of female and and lesbian characters. And that’s to say nothing of butch female characters, who exude an energy to rival that of the male characters around them. At the risk of spoiling the movie, it was genuinely nice to see Jackie get angry, aggressive, and hostile, without losing her femininity. She’s a bodybuilder, she’s a lesbian, she’s an athlete in these male-dominated spaces, and at times one could say she’s the more dominant one in the relationship with Lou, and her femininity is never, ever called into question. She is who she is. And I feel like cinematically and culturally, that’s a big deal. That’s a sign of evolution onscreen, for sure.

Love Lies Bleeding (and Yet Still Somehow is Alive and Well)

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