neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Carnage
	Delphine Gleize Chiara Mastroianni, Angela Molina, Lio, Lucia Sanchez, Esther Gorintin, Marilyne Even, Clovis Cornillac, Jacques Gamblin, Féodor Atkine, Bernard Sens 2002		Like filmmaker P. T. Anderson's hailed "Magnolia," the mesmerizing, multifarious ensemble drama "Carnage" ponders the mystery of random, potentially life-altering connections between people. The catalyst and linking entity in "Carnage," the debut feature from writer/director Delphine Gleize, is a bull killed in Spain after it gores a matador. While the matador lies comatose in a hospital, the dead bull is chopped apart, and the pieces are sent to various European markets. Winnie, a little epileptic girl, watches the goring on French TV. Her parents buy one of the bull's bones for their dog. Struggling actress/new-age seeker Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni) sells them the bone at her part-time supermarket job. A university researcher (Jacques Gamblin) with a pregnant wife (Lio) and a wandering eye procures the bull's eyes to study. A poor taxidermist (Bernard Sens) gets the horns as a present. A distressed woman (Angela Molina), whose daughter (Lucia Sanchez) is Winnie's teacher, dines on the bull's meat at a restaurant. "Carnage" comes to no pat conclusion, but most of the characters are transformed by the final reel, and Gleize brings inventive imagery and devilish humor to the interlocked storylines.