SIMON KILLER No Rating
USA (105 mi)
2012 d: Antonio Campos
An American film set in Paris, the follow up to AFTERSCHOOL
(2008), where the print received did *NOT* have French subtitles, due to an
error on the part of the filmmaker who sent the wrong copy of his film. As more than half the film is in French, this
is a major liability, so much so that the film cannot even be graded or
reviewed. While the film has a strong
stylistic sense, once more favoring long shots, this time following the lead
character walking down the crowded streets of Paris instead of following
students in his last film through the interior school hallways, where the
victims of his stalking can be seen just out of focus. Lead actor Brady Corbet is excellent as Simon,
a professional liar, con man, stalker, and psycho killer, just an all around
stand up guy who like Cagney in White Heat
(1949), is a psychopath with mother issues.
While he continually blends into the surface, finding ways to con his
way into people’s lives, his violent meltdowns have a humorous flavor.
The look of the film, shot by Joe Anderson who was assistant
camera in the last film, is terrific, while the aggressive music is even
better, showing an edgy side of this character where females seem drawn to
him. As this is a tense and suspenseful psychological
thriller, much of what’s left out are the interior thoughts and psychological
motivations of the characters, absolutely essential in a film like this. Much of the violent action happens just
offscreen, where instead plenty of sex is shown, as this character seems to
have a rabid sexual appetite, where most of the film is, in fact, hopping from
bed to bed. But there are other
threatening gestures, blackmail for instance, that make no sense without
clarifying subtitles, also the backstories of several of the characters are
missing. One of the film’s highlights,
however, is hearing Simon explain on several occasions what he studied in
school. Without understanding most of
the dialogue, this instead plays out much like Godard’s intentionally left
untranslated American version of his latest movie Film
Socialisme (2010), as too much of what’s needed is left incomprehensible. In Godard’s case that was intentional, while
here it’s more of an unintentional slip up.
