La Terre et le sang

Julien Leclercq spends a lot of time cruising at idle speed here and Earth and Blood is more like a formal exercise on the topic of depressing stylisation of the French countryside on the model of Francophone horror movies than was the case with his previous stylish action flicks. Beyond the colour palette and light sound elements of the director’s typical third-person shots, we find here very few of the peculiarities and ambitions that previously characterised Leclercq and made him the hope of European genre cinema. (17/05/2020)

The ratings at this site were putting me off, but I’ve generally enjoyed the French way of making films about their crime scene, which emerged about 1960. So I told myself that I’d give this film a try. What I got was a strange thriller, rather brutal, which works to its advantage, plus it seems like someone found a bunch of immigrants to kill like vermin in front of the cameras. And whether that is an advantage or not is a question you have to answer for yourself. As for me, it’s a brutal but interesting piece. (27/04/2020)