"Carnage" is a work that flits between various people and locations to make a mosaic of life that is thematically related. Its weakness is an attempt to cover too much, but the strengths add up to powerful visuals and dramatic sequences. Viewers who like a linear story may have to work a bit to put it all together, but although episodic, the film has a common thread that ties the characters and events to the director's worldly observations.

A bullfight in Spain, in which the young fighter is gored, leads to the slaughtered bull being carved up, with its various parts dispersed. By following the dissected bull's trail Gleize introduces us to an assortment of characters and leads us into their lives. One key character is a five-year-old girl whose presence is haunting and unifying. Whether the film is concentrating on the divided journey of the bull or on adultery, it is engaging and searing in its portrayal of different facets of life.

The cast includes beautiful Chiara Mastroianni as a struggling actress and Angela Molina (whom I still revere for her performance in Luis Buñuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire") as a woman with a trauma in her past. Jacques Gamblin plays a scientist with a wandering libido. The characters also include a taxidermist who would love to have the bull's horns, as well as others who add significantly to the overall color of the film.

There are many memorable scenes, such as the one in which the actress joins a group of participants who, stripped, enter a pool and are led through ritual exercises. Mastroianni is particularly effective in this segment. The mother of the taxidermist makes for another interesting character.