Les morsures de l'aube (2001) Online

This is a splendidly produced, directed, acted and scripted modern vampiresque tale carved into the underbelly of raucous French night life. There's plenty of glitter, pizzazz and charm mixed with a heaping dose of grit, filth and decadence that adds a unique realism to a captivating mystery of a ne'er-do-well (the "innocent" Antoine played by Guillaume Canet) thrust into a quest for the enigmatic Jordan "the lord of the night" and his alluring goth girlfriend/sister Violaine (sexy erotic-horror vixen Asia Argento). The audience follows the young Antoine on his spiral downward into nether regions of disturbing violence and despair, but he presses onward, transfixed by the memory of his recent collision with Violaine that left him physically empty and weak but spiritually rejuvenated. With newfound purpose and desire, he braves life-threatening dangers to peel away the fragile skin of ambiguity and uncover the truth about Violaine and the rumors of vampirism. This film diverts from the trappings of Anne Rice influenced romanticism and repetitive classical vampire motifs without resorting to modern-day drug metaphor. This film is better compared to Larry Fessenden's 1997 HABIT than any other recent vampire film. It is an intriguing mixture of the urban (ie. Fessenden's Manhattan), yet one cannot escape the thought that it draws on the somewhat surreal French vampire films of Jean Rollin. It is visibly quirky and riddled with moments of dark humor that serves to undercut some of the more disturbing (and mildly gory) scenes, but it is no comedy. It's unique and interesting throughout - and the mystery is fun to watch unfold.

In Antoine de Caunes' Love Bites, we find ourselves following Antoine (Guillaume Canet), a night owl who has a habit of dropping peoples' names to get into the city's best clubs.

One night, he uses the name of a mysterious and elusive fellow night owl- who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time- to crash an aristocratic gathering.

But things don't go as planned. He finds himself being whisked into the office of the party's host- a man named Von Brulow. Despite admitting that he lied to get in, Von Brulow believes that Antoine is the man he needs to find the man he's looking for- the aforementioned mysterious and elusive Jordan.

Antoine is handed half a million francs and told that he will receive another half a million when his task has been completed. In reality, he has no idea what is going on, or what he's going to do...but he knows that he is not in a position to decline the "job" offer...and it does pay well.

With only his small time hustler friend Etienne to rely upon for help (and even then, only when it is in his self interest), Antoine finds himself thrust into the underground world of dive bars, dog fighting, and fetish clubs....as he goes in search of the mythological Jordan.

More a conman than a PI, Antoine does manage to uncover some information about the man. Mainly, that he has a sister named Violaine (Asia Argento). And that, together, they may or may not be two of the last remaining Vampires- whose father demanded they bare a child together upon his deathbed, to ensure the survival of the race and return of their powers.

He learns, however, that Violaine denied her father's dying request and has rejected the advances from her brother.

When the two eventually meet, Antoine instantly becomes infatuated by her deviant, lustful beauty. Though, it's unclear whether she feels the same way, or is just manipulating him for her own ends.

As he delves deeper and deeper into this world- driven, now, by an insatiable curiosity- things become darker, as he gets closer to the truth...or possibly just death.

You'll have to watch to see how it plays out.

All-in-all this is an entertaining little vampire flick, with a sexy lingerie clad Asia Argento, that manages to hold your attention throughout. It's by no means one of the best vampire films of all time or anything, but it's made well and certainly worth a watch. 6 out of 10.

In Paris, Antoine (Guillaume Canet) is a ne'er-do-well, using all the possible tricks the get into private parties and night–clubs. He lives the nightlife, and sleeps nearby a swimming pool of a gym club. He uses the name of a mysterious man known as Jordan to get into a private party, where an old man gives him 100,000.00 French Francs, with the promise of another 900,000.00, is he gets any information about the location of Jordan. Antoine and his friend Étienne (Gérard Lanvin) chases Jordan through the Parisian night, and Antoine meets Jordan's sister Violaine Charlier (Asia Argento). Violaine is considered a weird person, who bites her lovers in the neck. Antoine gets involves in weird and dangerous situations while pursuing Violaine and her brother. Something is missing in `Les Morsures de L'aube' to be a great movie. It has a beautiful photography of the night of Paris, excellent soundtrack and the sexy Asia Argento. However, the story is very confused and the conclusion is very disappointing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Cães da Noite' (`Dogs of the Night')

This film has atmosphere, no doubt. But something is missing, I'm not so sure what. Guillaume Canet does not convince as a tough guy who goes from bar to bar. He's got a face too pretty and doesn't look like a party animal. Asia Argento however is perfect. Sure, her role is more physical, she has not much to speak in French. I knew a girl with exactly the same Italian accent, sounds nice by the way. The whole movie is nice to look at, but somehow, you don't get too much involved. The end could have been more dramatic.

Antoine De Caunes is a clever and funny TV-man who became a fairly good cinema actor. "Les morsures de l'aube" is his first movie as a director, and for me, not unforgettable. The storyline was a good start : a young nightclubber (by day, he sleeps in a swimming pool) tries any trick to go inside fashionable places. One day, he pretends to know a mysterious man called "Jordan". Another mysterious man gives him money to find this Jordan, the enquiry starts. First of all, Jordan has a sister, Violaine, played by Assia Argento. The brother and the sister are known as a scary couple, the live by night only, they bite people's neck and have weird manners... This story was not a bad idea I guess, and there is a lot of funny scenes, even some absurd situations. The photography is not bad, it looks like a long length advertising for a perfume or something. Assia Argento has a strong seduction power, Gérard Lanvin (the hero's great friend) plays as a real actor, but I'm afraid he is the only one ! When people talk, they quite don't open their mouth, the audience does not understand what they say, the best dialogs get lost by a poor or too indulgent actor direction. The end is a waste... I'm afraid that any "Buffy" episode is better than this movie. I gave it a 6/10 because I'm too kind.

A nightclub gadfly (Guillame Canet) sneaks into a private party by claiming to know a guy named "Jordan". The host catches him and enlists his aid in finding this guy "Jordan", which he agrees to for some reason. After a series of misadventures that take up nearly half the movie he finds "Jordan" and his sexy sister "Violaine" (Asia Argento), and they turn out to be some kind of vampires. They have been making these kind of erotic vampire movies both in Europe and the US for forty years now, and they're really getting to be kind of old hat. This one is also kind of annoying in that it is very modern-day French (i.e. very glossy and derivative of Hollywood). Jean Rollin was doing this much better thirty or forty years ago.

It does have a couple of good points though. Asia Argento is absolutely smokin'-ass hot. She has a very memorable scene where she picks the protagonist up in a club and takes him home. She goes to fix him a drink, which she drugs, and comes back naked from the waist down (her pants mysteriously MIA). Moments later they're in bed where in his drugged state he hallucinates that she is THREE bottomless vampire girls all sucking on him (and not just in the vampiric sense!). The guy also has a wife(?) who is a lounge club singer. At one point she sings what appears to be a French lounge-club version of the great Willie Nelson song "The Night Life" (i.e. "The night life ain't no good life"/"But it's my life"). I'm not sure this is actually the Willie Nelson song, since it's in French, but if not, he should probably sue.

But if I sound a little uncertain of some things, it's because I didn't really understand French dialogue very well, but perhaps I should have tried more because the English subtitles were either generated by a malfunctioning computer translation program or written by someone who had no grasp on the English language. They're often unintentionally funny (such as when they try to translate bizarre French idioms directly into English), but mostly they're just distracting. I don't know if all of this adds up to a recommendation or a pan, but you can decide for yourself I guess.

Based on the novel by Tonino Benacquista, Les Morsures de l'Aube follows the misadventures of a ne'er-do-well whose unique brand of social climbing results in his pursuing, and being pursued, by gangsters, a very unusual pair of vampires, and a wealthy vampire hunter. Backed by hard-driving techno music, sudden violence and gunplay in a Tarantino-esque style, and liberal dollops of black comedy, the movie offers few sympathetic characters. Guillaume Canet's protagonist, while something of a boyish rogue-type, is often as violent as his pursuers. His best friend and closest ally, played by Gérard Lanvin, is a sleazy "photographer." The only character we encounter who is likeable from the start is Asia Argento's gothette vampire. Nonetheless, as our hero spirals deeper into the seamier side of the nighttime world he inhabits, his attempts to pull himself out succeed in giving the audience something to root for.

By presenting us with vampires almost entirely devoid of supernatural powers, who must use drugs to incapacitate their victims and guns or knives to kill, this film attempts what so many films of recent years have also tried to do; reinterpret the vampire mythos for a modern-day audience. That it actually succeeds for the most part is no mean feat, but the reversion to the usual conventions at the film's conclusion leaves a jarring taste in one's mouth. What has been a pretty decent gangster flick with some supernatural overtones suddenly tries to pass off a straight horror movie ending, and it doesn't work, not even if taken as a parody of those kinds of endings.

Too confused about what it wants to be in order to be a really good film, this is still a decent enough way to spend an evening.

Asia Argento stars as Violaine Charlier in this 'vampire' thriller. Antonio (Guillaume Canet) is a mooch, living off his wealthier and more successful friends for everything he needs and wants. To make some extra money, he's hired by a rich businessman (Jean-Marie Winling) to track down the supposed vampire Jordan (Orazio Massaro). Moving place to place in search, Antonio meets Violaine, Jordan's sister. From there, the trouble only escalates into a new high for Antonio.

Sadly, the DVD cover was more interesting than the actual film. I know, that's not uncommon, but the sexy Asia Argento wearing a cut-up latex outfit with some S&M-looking people behind her? That screams "BUY ME." Luckily, I picked it up for only a few dollars, and Asia did look particularly good. She's about the only reason to bother with this. While the premise is good and the French truly know how to make a great vampire movie. . . this simply did not work. There was, at most, ten minutes of vampires in the entire film, and the majority of it was made up Guillaume Canet's character mooching and Asia Argento's character being hot. It wasn't poorly made, just nothing special. Not entirely intriguing and I had to fight to keep attention numerous times. There's very little, if any, horror elements to the film, and it's more of a dramedy than anything else. Very little mystery, very few thrills, and nothing really great about it. Unless you're a die-hard Asia Argento fan, I wouldn't bother with this one.

Final verdict: 5.5/10.