Claire Denis, set to turn 79 this year, has not slowed in the least. As cameras roll on Cry of the Guards she’s entered negotiations to direct The Soap Maker, an update-of-sorts of Mauro Bolognini’s 1977 horror feature Gran Bollito, itself a spin on real-life killer Leonarda Cianciulli––an Italian whose methods for murdering three women involved the composting of their bodies into soaps, candles, and sweets enjoyed by her contemporaries. Producers have acquired rights to both the original film and Cianciulli’s diaries which, per Variety, she “wrote in the psychiatric prison were she spent the rest of her life after confessing her crimes,” while their EFM-friendly package is comparing it to Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, and Get Out.
What is a slightly odd pairing at first glance only makes too much sense when comparing such material with Denis’ oeuvre. Hers is, at heart, a corpus about relationships’ capacity to spill into violence; Trouble Every Day hits the horror mark right on the nose, but 2013’s Bastards is quite as frightening, and perhaps the best distillation of her non-pareil powers. It’s hard loving her work and not being at least a tad ecstatic about such material in her hands, or a lover of Tindersticks who doesn’t imagine what textures they might conjure.
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