LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW

They’re nameless and we don’t know much about them, except that they have something important in common: they explore, in the moment and in their own way, fantasies that most people would consider extreme. With five consecutive stories featuring different outcasts, Like Cattle Towards Glow looks directly into the shadowy side of sexual desire as it is rarely seen on the big screen. Whether they are addicted to heroin, suicidal or driven by underground violence, the characters imagined by American writer Dennis Cooper and Franco-American visual artist Zac Farley all move in darkness toward something intense, dangerous, unsustainable, fatal. Produced by Christophe Honoré, their very explicit dramatic feature is not, however, merely provocative: it also takes an interest in the fragility of 13 people in their 20s who are chasing an elusive refuge that could kill them at any moment. This film, in equal measures fascinating and disturbing, boasts superb images created by Michael Salerno, a cinematographer and portrait artist who is not shy about looking directly at bodies in their most vulnerable moments, whether in an underground punk club, an anonymous apartment or a deserted wilderness.