Elle

ELLE              C-                   

France  Germany  Belgium  (130 mi)  2016  ‘Scope  d:  Paul Verhoeven 

One sick fuck of a movie, one filled with disturbingly violent, adolescent male sex fantasies that degrade women, creating an ugly, highly exploitive, misogynistic atmosphere throughout, that is redeemed somewhat by a stupefyingly dark performance by Isabelle Huppert that is so over-the-top that it has comical elements, but honestly, despite all the accolades, this is a mindlessly excessive provocation that will end up doing more harm than good, as it normalizes criminal behavior, makes it blend in with normal bourgeois society where the participants often can’t tell the difference.  While that should be ridiculous, or hilarious, it is neither, as instead it sets a fatalistic tone of gloom that pervades throughout the entire picture, as if saturated by toxic air.  When considering the source, Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven, this is par for the course, as he seems to specialize in morally transgressive material, usually crossing the line into distasteful territory, where some obviously have no problem with it, but it remains surprising how something this revoltingly emptyheaded can be dressed up in arthouse production values, a stellar cast, and somehow the offensive material is considered acceptable.  Sorry, but it falls into the crassly exploitive territory, where this is one of the overrated films of the year, including Huppert’s performance, which is all show and surface texture, more a display of the grotesque, as the film has little redeeming value.  The film shows a rape scene not once, twice, or even three times, but four times, showcasing it for exploitive purposes, then immediately shifting gears, turning to Huppert’s blasé attitude afterwards, ordering sushi by phone, asking incredibly, “What is a holiday roll?,” before somehow blending rape into normalized sexual relations with people preferring a hard-edged, sadomasochistic kick in the head for their pleasure.  On top of this, the rape victim (Huppert) owns a video-game company that saturates its graphic content with increasingly violent, sadistic rape imagery that she criticizes at one point as “too timid,” where we then have to deal with the startlingly shallow, comic book personalities of the few insipid characters that create this kind of junk for a living. Before long, all of this has been mixed into an acceptable middle class attitude, where repeated rape attacks go unreported to the police, where violent sex becomes normalized in existing relationships, where the bottom line portrayal of men is so cliché driven, as if all they have is a penis, and nothing else matters or defines their character, as if this pervasive culture is contaminated by nothing but sick and disgusting men, suggesting the world would be better off without them, as who really needs them?  End of story.  And to further delineate a line of demarcation, let’s call the picture ELLE (She).  

The idea that one can tastefully trivialize and make a mockery of rape culture in glossy arthouse cinema is simply a bad idea, as is the idea of Huppert being an appropriate feminist response to violently inflicted trauma, applying vigilante justice to her perpetrator, encouraging him to do it without the mask on, as her character is too internally damaged to be relatable or believable, but again remains in the comic book world of delusion and adolescent fantasy, where the ridiculous nature of the film simply can’t be taken seriously.  Overall, people are getting sucker punched with this one.  Ostensibly a film about a middle-aged businesswoman Michèle Leblanc (Huppert), seen at the opening getting brutally raped in her own home by a man coming through the window in a ski mask dressed all in black, leaving her battered and bloodied.  But instead of going to the police, we learn she distrusts and despises them due to her past history, as her father is a convicted serial killer from the 1970’s who forced her, at the age of ten, to assist in the burning of all their belongings afterwards, where she was literally covered in ash when discovered by the police, becoming a subject of harassment, with her father serving out the rest of his life in prison, though he does have parole hearings every ten years.  Whenever her father’s infamous deeds appear in the news, Michèle is dragged through the mud as well, with the public reviling her and expressing their scorn.  As if in protest to good taste, Michèle along with her best friend Anna (Anne Consigny) are literary book editors who develop a brutally violent video-game business catering to teenage boys that exploits grotesque rape imagery, complete with ecstatic moans, appealing to the lowest element of male fantasia and delusion, which, of course, makes them highly successful, allowing her to live alone, along with her cat, in a lavish home surrounded by dozens of open windows allowing the intruder to appear.  As if to place her in a moral purgatory for which there is no escape, she is sleeping with her best friend’s husband, Robert (Christian Berkel), while separated from her own, Richard (Charles Berling), while raising an oblivious grown son who seems to have more psychological issues than anyone else in the film, which of course remain completely unaddressed.  At the same time, her elderly mother (Judith Magre) relies upon plastic surgery and paid young male escorts to make her feel young, a habit Michèle finds revolting and disgusting.  While this rapist is on the loose, he chooses to continue to send sick and twisted messages on her phone and in her bed, all of which suggest she remains a target, along with crude, mocking messages from within her own company, affixing her face to the animated female character getting raped, which is sent to the working computers of the entire staff. 

Everything described thus far is simply the set-up, the terms of the game from which Michèle must maneuver and operate in order to turn the tables and regain a position of power, changing all the locks in her home, buying a small axe and some toxic spray while taking target practice at a gun range in order to protect herself, while Verhoeven has surrounded her with a myriad of possible subjects, any one of which have a strong reason to hate her, while also protruding into her dreams, where we see various revenge scenarios playing out in her imagination.  As for Michèle herself, she thrives on other people’s discomfort, exploiting their weaknesses, developing a casual disregard for conventional morality and has no problem snooping into the computers of her coworkers searching for clues, masturbating in a Buñuelian moment while watching a neighboring couple set up a Nativity scene, reaching orgasm exactly when the lights come on, or launching into a lengthy discourse on her own personal role in her father’s infamous deeds that she relates dispassionately at a party to one of her neighbors, Patrick (Laurent Lafitte), a stock trader with a beautiful but devoutly Catholic wife, Rebecca (Virginie Efira), where she may as well be describing a list of items on a shopping list, acting as if there is nothing inappropriate about it while at the same time carefully gauging his response.  Rather than offer any relevant comment on rape or societal conventions, Verhoeven is content to see the world through the disfigured life of Michèle, a tragic figure in every respect, considering what happened to her at a young age, yet the director refuses to see her as a victim and instead uses her psychological trauma as an excuse to explore all manner of human degradation, including sexual humiliation or those who are aroused by being beaten and raped, where he is trivializing human behavior, suggesting it’s all part of a wide-ranging collection of bizarre sexual behavior, suggesting I’m OK if you’re OK, yet it’s an excuse to display sadomasochistic male fantasies onscreen, suggesting what’s taking place behind closed doors could be anything, aberrant or otherwise, suggesting it’s all part of the human face.  What this adds to any discussion on human behavior is negligible, as it’s all been done to much better effect by Olivier Assayas in Demonlover (2002), one of the few artists to examine the detrimental effects of brutally violating porn on the Internet, suggesting it goes beyond mere desensitizing but is more about dehumanization, combining the deep-seeded ramifications of a soulless Internet entity with the ruthless ambitions of capitalism.  By comparison, Verhoeven’s revenge saga is deceptively shallow and a major disappointment, working in the French language for the first time in the director’s career, reduced to an offensive onslaught of hateful and demeaning imagery, yet it is a rather faithful adaptation of the 2012 Philippe Djian novel Oh…, the same writer who wrote Betty Blue (37°2 Le Matin) (1986), an author who is extremely popular in Europe but utterly overlooked in the United States, where there are few revelations anywhere to be found that distinguish this from typical male sexist content, instead becoming an opportunity to plaster the screen with exploitation genre, fetishistic rape imagery that is meant to be shocking, all in the name of entertainment.  Perhaps Dr. Verhoeven could move into pedophilia next.     

Demonlover

DEMONLOVER            A     
France  (129 mi)  2002  d:  Olivier Assayas

Something of an artistic retort to the plodding, classical French tradition of his previous period costume drama Les Destinées Sentimentales (2000), which was almost a caricature of a French production, Assayas follows that with a cyber thriller that captures a startlingly contemporary look at the modern globalized world.  It’s a remarkable film with awesome power, truly creepy, and brilliantly conceived, where the film has a spectacular look to it, often leaving one bewildered and enthralled at the same moment, with the capacity to genuinely shock audiences.  It received a chilly reception at Cannes from French critics and then bombed at the box office, causing Assayas to make 10-minutes of cuts from his original print that have never been restored.  And while the controversial subject matter includes a gladiator style corporate struggle to gain control of a Japanese 3-D porn website, while also controlling the X-rated comic book industry, Assayas has further censored some of his X-rated animé sequences in order to obtain an R-rating, intentionally blurring or pixilating the genital areas.  Actually, the censorship on display in a film that explores the extreme reach of the Internet, is a puzzler, as it’s originally designed to shock the audiences with the graphic nature of the images, which of course, are then toned down—all part of the befuddlement.  Another surprise, especially as the years progress, is how much any film that focuses on the latest developments in the computer world is going to be outdated almost immediately, as that’s the one industry that is advancing into the future in leaps and bounds, making much of this experience resemble the equally outdated TRON: Legacy in 3D at IMAX (2010), a follow up to a 1982 film, where the state of the art features (at the time) already appear old-fashioned.  Nonetheless, the film has a sleek, futuristic design as clean and sterile as the paranoid conspiracy movies of the 1970’s, where most of the film takes place in common areas of transience, like airplanes, airports, hotels, restaurants, cars, modern offices, or night clubs, all featuring spacious and luxurious accommodations. 

Assayas is one of the few artists that examines the extreme effects of the Internet, which includes not only desensitizing, but dehumanization, combining the deep-seeded ramifications of this soulless Internet entity to the ruthless nature of capitalism.  From the very outset, the first images we see are in a luxury first class area of an airplane, reminiscent of similar scenes by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but what’s different is that none of the passengers are paying any attention to the TV monitors that are a constant barrage of fire and explosions.  In fact throughout the film, irrespective of how vile or horrific the material is found on Internet porn sites or seen on TV (where we even see President George W. Bush on CNN), no one seems the least bit affected by it and displays little reaction.  What Assayas then proceeds to do is create a fast-paced, modernistic thriller that establishes original themes of corporate espionage, back room deals, cutthroat capitalistic competitiveness before delving into the mysteries of virtual reality through Internet connections, where the audience is dragged into a sadistic torture porn website that literally becomes the new nightmarish reality, as we’ve literally entered into an alternate mindset.  The casualness with which Assayas manages to make this transition is a bit awesome, as the viewers initially have no idea how they got there.  But that is the ease of the Internet, which is simply a series of clicks and you are there.  How long you stay there is completely up to you.  Assayas beautifully sets this all up with his cinema of detachment and distance, exquisitely filmed by Denis Lenoir, where the characters themselves couldn’t be more sterile and empty than the blood-sucking, corporate world where they work, an investment company that seems to squeeze all the life out of the major players, where the film follows the statuesque and robot-like Diane de Monx (Connie Nielsen), seen sabotaging someone’s drink to keep them out of the game for awhile, quickly stepping into their shoes where she has more influence.  Little do we know she’s a spy working for another company, sent there to undermine their effectiveness. 

Diane’s dispassionate nature makes it hard to empathize, where in a futuristic setting like Blade Runner (1982) she would be a completely programmed robot (or replicant) sent to carry out a company’s mission, a completely disposable entity void of any human compassion.  Initially this is the mindset she conveys, where there is little difference between her business and private life, never revealing her real character, as she is an amorphous mask.  She works for Hervè, Charles Berling, completely unrecognizable from his compassionate priest portrayal in Les Destinées Sentimentales, as here he plays a corporate brute, a hard-drinking, sex-driven, chauvinistic business executive used to the finer things in life and getting what he wants, so if Diane works for him, he expects sexual reciprocity.   This, of course, puts her at a distinct disadvantage, where the complexity of the situation is balancing her secret spy mission with maintaining a professional demeanor, always having to remain an inscrutable asset to the company.  So she has to perform in the bedroom and the boardroom.  The film is a continuing series of back room dirty crosses, where in this world, no one is to be trusted.  Enter Chloë Sevigny as Elise, who’s an equally slippery character, but one with excellent behind-the-scenes connections.  When seen on her own, she’s naked in her hotel room bed furiously playing video games like some hot-wired adolescent teen, but she’s on to Diane, who first has to survive a catfight with Gina Gershon, an American porn distributor for a company called Demonlover that wants to buy the rights of a major Japanese animè producer in order to annihilate all competition.  Diane’s job is to sabotage any deal, but is undermined by Elise, who has Diane kidnapped and drugged, forcing her into becoming a submissive work slave, making her do whatever she tells her.  This loss of power and loss of identity coincides with the discovery of a particularly sadistic interactive torture website, the Hell Fire Club, where Diane’s weakened vulnerability leaves her subject to an altered reality, a terrifying underworld secretly run by the Russian mafia that is accessible via the Internet to ordinary suburban households and their consumer habits.  Assayas scores the film with original music from Sonic Youth, which becomes especially impressive as Diane loses control, where the music literally takes her place where by the end all we hear is the music raging.  

We were all weaned on the corrupt business practices of THE GODFATHER (1972, 1974), where a mobster betrays his mafia family and sells him out to another crime family, as this was all routine in the ways of business and capitalism, eventually replaced by corporate takeovers, where Assayas examines this supposedly faceless world of globalization and corporate mergers, all but obliterating any sense of personal loyalty.  DEMONLOVER is ultimately a nightmarish fantasy about the moral abyss of big business, beholden to no one but itself, ruthlessly wiping out all competitors in an attempt to build a monopoly as the ultimate goal.  Assayas is right on the money in trying to pinpoint just who's running the world here, just a bunch of loner, blood-sucking vampires that buy and sell sex, behind the scenes creeps that would just as soon kill someone as lose money,.  Obviously it's all about power, power, POWER, and those that have it, don't keep it forever.  Eventually, through a series of betrayals and murders, à la Richard III, he who was once top cock on the block becomes yesterday’s news in this corporate chessboard game where multiple pieces are ruthlessly sacrificed so that ONE body, only ONE business, can stay ahead of the game.  Intriguing from start to finish, despite the inherent creepiness of the characters, all of whom resemble replicants, where one can’t help but think that at any time they were going to pull their masks off and underneath would be mutant, flesh-eating reptiles.  Apalled by how easily sadism has crept into the modern age, Assayas melds personal greed and ambition with an oppressive murk of suppressed paranoia that can't stop itself from feeding on new blood, new dollars, with rampant consumerism effectively portrayed here as ever new indulgences of the flesh, particularly the sado-masochistic variety, with the Russian mafia dominating the field of international corporate terrorizers, where nothing stands in their way, certainly not the age-old laws of supply and demand, where only the most brutally ruthless survive, and survive they do, like chameleons, like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956, again 1978), blending right into the best neighborhoods—simply an outrageous vision. 

DEMONLOVER is also a continuation of an improvisational style that began with Irma Vep (1996), both filmed very quickly in a painterly style, as if using brush stokes to quickly advance the material as hastily as possible.  The film bombards you with an explosion of surface sensualities, much of it degrading, yet the characters are wearing the latest fashions, drive the most expensive cars, and represent the consumer age like there's no tomorrow, so why not add sex and corporate espionage as one and the same thing.  Fuck before you get fucked.  It's like political negative ads.  They're ugly, they're demeaning, they're filled with lies, but they work.  The film language is unbelievably expressive, very painterly, as Assayas pointed out in the Q & A afterwards, and in his view his best effort so far in making the screen look and feel like he creates in his head, with an underlying sound language that's equally hypnotic, providing layer after layer of more than what most people can actually comprehend or endure, much of it told with lightning quick, rapid fire imagery that accentuates the violence all around us.  Assayas indicated this is how he views television imagery, commercial films or advertisements.  They're just an assault on your senses that urge you to consume, consume, consume, and just be a slave to the wishes of commerce, with no moral accompaniment, no balance of power, all power is in the hands of the entrepreneurs.  They are non-stop money machines with absolutely no moral conscience.   Assayas indicated he attempted to make a subversive film, subverting the interests of commerce by utilizing their methods, and uses commercial film techniques to lull the viewer into what he wants them to consider.

Les Destinées Sentimentales

LES DESTINÉES SENTIMENTALES             B+                  

aka:  Les Destinées

France  Switzerland  (180 mi)  2000  ‘Scope  d:  Olivier Assayas

One of the more ambitious works of this often modern and experimental filmmaker, making what amounts to an homage to Jean Renoir’s THE GRAND ILLUSION (1937), a lengthy, old-fashioned costume drama that depicts turn of the century French aristocracy on the decline, as seen through the eyes of those few inheriting family fortunes, who are radically effected by World War I, as afterwards they’re forced to watch their wealth and privilege disappear before their eyes, replaced by a new emerging social order that pays little attention to class.  Much like Renoir’s film, the story is advanced through an examination of relationships, suggesting mankind’s common experiences should prevail above economic or political divisions.  Adapted from Jacques Chardonne’s 1934 novel by the same name, supposedly beloved in France, as by the end it carries some melancholic, Proustian reflections about what constitutes a valued life, the film is divided into three one-hour chapters examining three decades in the life of a wealthy porcelain manufacturing family.  As the 19th century draws to a close, the film opens with a funereal solemnity, as we see a horse-driven cart carrying the casket of a porcelain magnate with a line of workers following behind as they proceed to the burial site, a picture of unity and common purpose that will be split apart over the next few decades.  While the film has an epic sweep, with sumptuously beautiful cinematography by Eric Gautier, Assayas creates an impressionistic journey of how many of the characters react to their changing lives, where the atmospheric style is maintained throughout, but the storyline as adapted by Assayas grows weaker as the film progresses, where the weight of the ambitious demands of a three-hour film are simply not met, leaving gaps and holes where too often very little happens, lulls that simply can’t match the surging moments occurring elsewhere. 

Jacques Chardonne’s own family comprises the source material for his trilogy Les Destinées Sentimentales, where he was raised Protestant in the small town of Barbezieux, which even today has fewer than 5000 inhabitants, but is in the heart of the cognac wine growing region, where his father came from a family of cognac traders, his brother-in-law was part of the Delamain cognac dynasty, while his American mother was a Quaker and heiress to the Haviland porcelain dynasty.  Chardonne’s social conservatism supported the Vichy government during the war where he was denounced and imprisoned as a Nazi collaborator, where he was afraid of being shot as his literature was banned for a short period after the war and scrutinized for its “Frenchness.”  Francois Mitterrand, French President for 13 years, who actually worked briefly for the Vichy regime during the war, was born in a nearby region of Jarnac, and Chardonne was his favorite writer, anchored in French tradition, particularly the extremely conservative, highly classical style, with its descriptive focus upon regionalism and being tied to the land.  The film itself is a long and sprawling work, a detailed-oriented period piece that spans several decades from the early 1900’s to the years between the World Wars, tracing the impact of changing times both culturally and economically on a single family, while following one particular romance.  The film follows Jean Barnery (Charles Berling), born into a porcelain manufacturing family in the Limoges region of France, where the ruling families in the region make china and Cognac, transferring power within their own families in the traditional way from one generation to the next.  Their porcelain factory caters to only the wealthiest tastes, creating a handcrafted, exquisitely designed china, much of it shipped to affluent Americans.  Over time, they are eclipsed by modern factories that can mass-produce products more cheaply, undercutting their profits, challenging their working methods, and eventually their very survival.  The film contrasts the wealthy bosses living lives of luxury and ease while the factory workers continue to live in poverty, which interestingly remains out of sight throughout the entire film.  Instead, what the viewer witnesses is only the most aristocratically resplendent wealth on display.        

Jean Barnery initially defies tradition, leaving the family business to become a Protestant minister, where he’s seen as an overly severe intellectual prone to self-criticism in a region that is isolated from Catholics who outnumber them 10 to 1 in France.  While he gives voice to the spiritual needs of the community, he represents an ingrained religious traditionalism, the picture of austerity, like the keepers of the gate guarding any and all trespasses.  Accordingly, he is completely inflexible when it comes to what he suspects is his wife’s infidelity, seen throwing Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) and their daughter Aline out of the house, sending them off to exile in a smaller estate, all in response to vicious rumors casting aspersions on her character, where appearances matter more than reality.  Nathalie resolutely denies any wrongdoing and stubbornly refuses to forgive him afterwards, forbidding him from ever seeing or speaking to their daughter.  This crack in the façade of moral certainty has never stopped the self-righteous, where marriage is about responsibility and obligation, with little thought for happiness or love.  Surprisingly then, Jean develops a growing affection for a member of his congregation, Pauline (Emmanuelle Béart), divorcing Nathalie, giving her all shares to the business, while he resigns from the clergy and marries Pauline, retreating into his own self-imposed exile where he lives a luxurious life in Switzerland while receiving monthly stipends from the family business.  This segment couldn’t be more luxuriously beautiful, even idyllic, almost like a mirage, living on a pristine mountainside overlooking a tranquil lake, where he is the picture of Gustav Mahler retreating to his mountainside summer villas to compose music, but Jean has no such aspirations, where he and Pauline are simply happy and in love, where they haven’t a care in the world.  The idea of living in such extravagance without having to work is a bit mind-altering, and even today, one-hundred years later, it remains hard to comprehend.  How was this all possible?  And indeed, we never see the workers that struggle in the factory each day to make it all possible.  From this dreamlike interlude, war strikes, sending a jolt of reality into this harmonious picture of love without hindrance. 

While Jean and Pauline represent an idealized and mostly unattainable love, Pauline is a thoroughly modern woman who isn’t remotely religious or concerned about what others think of her, but then she’s allowed to live in a vacuum completely shut out from the rest of the world.  This kind of ivory tower existence only exists for a few, completely absent any real work or responsibilities, where love seen in this light is little more than a fairy tale.  Pauline dreads returning to the factory in Barbezieux, knowing what kind of small-town mentality exists there, where everyone meddles in everyone else’s affairs, proclaiming if they go, “This is the end of our love.”  Unfortunately, this film is filled with swooning proclamations like this one, which are simply overexaggerated gestures that suggest the dream is over, but hardly the love.  Jean is quickly ushered back to take over as head of what has become an ailing company under poor leadership, where he has the backing of his family and the workers, at least initially, until the stock market collapse wipes out the American market, initiating a series of ongoing struggles with the constantly striking workforce that will drag on for years.  Of interest, the socialist journalist writing on behalf of the worker’s interests, who also served at the front lines during the war, remains a trusted and valued friend of Jean, even socially, perhaps because he so clearly delineates the opposition’s point of view.  What is clear is that the family business becomes more than an obligation, but a reason for being, a philosophic ideal largely built upon old ideas about privilege, yet it also ties into the director’s concept about art, providing a near documentary detail about the workings of the factory as it goes about the production of what they hope is the most exquisitely perfect piece of porcelain, elevated to an artform, where nothing less is acceptable.  By the end, years fly by and Jean, weakened by a medical affliction, ruminates about his life, contending “Everything I've done is worthless.  I was always wrong.”  Again this kind of cheap melodrama takes the focus away from what is a superbly directed film, given a novelesque sweep of grandeur and noblesse, showing some beautiful patience in this epic document that in the end cherishes those small, seemingly insignificant moments that stay with us forever.