Demonlover

If a movie upsets this many people (check the reviews below), there must be something to it. Perhaps people are reacting to the insidiousness of the world of corporate espionage, pornography, lovelessness, pleasurelessness, etc. on display in every corner of the movie. Although its final 30 minutes or so veer toward incoherence--the meaning of what ultimately happens seems less interesting as a resolution than in (for example) "Mulholland Drive"--it's a cool, controlled, provocative rethinking of the modern techno thriller. It's a far more subtle and nuanced movie than the kind of head trip movies that kids go for these days ("Requiem for a Dream," bleh!), and the Sonic Youth score and cinematography are terrific.

I was originally attracted to the film on the strengths of Assayas' other films--all three I've seen ("Irma Vep", "Late August/Early Sept.", "Les Destinees Sentimentales") excellent and each in its own way unique. His work is eclectic and unpredictable in the best sense, seemingly at ease with big or small productions--in the great tradition of Jonathan Demme or Michael Winterbottom or Louis Malle. This is probably the only one of his films so far that could have attracted an American audience, but the chilliness of its surfaces apparently has scared a few too many away. It's a pity, because the film's definitely worth seeing.

One of the great things about the French is their interest and promotion of THEORY. Sometimes when theory infiltrates Art in too direct a manner the results can be boring or pretentious. In the case of demonlover neither is the case yet the end product doesn't measure up to its individual parts which are brilliant. Suffice it to say this is not a movie for the squeamish or for fans of the character building qualities of a life in business. What the film shows is how much of a construct modern identity is; how much it depends on role, on possessions, on our relationship to the pecking order of whatever tribe we find ourselves in. The film also suggests that the price we pay for hanging on to this fragile identity is nothing less than the seeds of our destruction - a doorway in fact to depression, madness and perversion. Lastly, the film is a devastating look at the way big media corporations hide their involvement in anti-social projects under the veneer of 'just business' or, if they went to the Harvard Business School, 'shareholder value'. Its a rare thing to make an interesting movie with NO sympathetic characters but demonlover achieves this. Many complaints have been launched against the incoherent plot, but the fact is that the plot is not incoherent at all, it just lacks credibility which is a different matter altogether. But no matter: its still an interesting take on a very real set of contemporary circumstances. The performances are also quite compelling which suggests that no matter how dubious a character's morality is, if she's beautiful we (men, that is) will hang on her every word.

Admittedly, DEMONLOVER makes a sharp left narrative turn at the halfway point that's going to confound viewers who are intrigued by the straightforward (and extremely absorbing) high-stakes opening. But that's no reason to dismiss the many, many things that writer/director Olivier Assayas gets absolutely right. In the end, DEMONLOVER is a fascinating mirror-world reflection (as William Gibson would call it) of where our global society might be just five minutes from now: the fittest who survive will be multilingual, career-consumed and ridiculously chic, but also soulless, as if missing the gene that supplies a sense of loyalty and ethics. The movie is a cautionary, though entirely plausible, tale of humans debased by their own lust for ungoverned capitalism. Every line of dialogue is about the business merger at hand; in the rare instances where feelings are discussed, they're usually about how *work* affects those emotions. The big wink here is that the characters don't even discuss business honestly, because each has duplicitous motives.

Technically, DEMONLOVER is a feast. Denis Lenoir's widescreen photography constantly dazzles -- many of the tracking shots are sustained in close-up (creating paranoia), and the color spectrum appears as if filtered through corporate fluorescence. (The neon-drenched Tokyo sequence is particularly hypnotic.) Jump cuts keep the narrative one step ahead of the audience. Sonic Youth's atonal guitar score creates the same mutant environment that Howard Shore pulled off in CRASH. Most significantly, Connie Nielsen's face (and hair and wardrobe) mesmerizes more than any CGI I've ever seen. Considering the labyrinthine motives of her character, Nielsen's exquisite subtlety may be lost on first-time viewers; on second look, her emotionless gaze speaks volumes.

Audiences (and critics) have unanimously attacked the `problematic' second half as an example of directorial self-indulgence. While I agree that it's not as satisfying as the first half, I don't think it's a total crash-and-burn (pardon the pun). Clearly, the ending is open to thematic interpretation, but I think Assayas is just saying that if our species isn't more careful, we'll end up like one-dimensional characters in a video game of our own devising - sure, winner takes all, but the rest of us suffer enormously.

Narrative ambiguity aside, DEMONLOVER is the great Hitchcockian/Cronenbergian espionage fantasia I've been waiting for. It makes sense that it would come from Europe, since Hollywood forgot long ago how to make their assembly-line genre exercises intellectually stimulating. (Like the animé porn within the story, Hollywood movies today represent no more than a calculated corporate commodity.) More than any other film from the last 2½ years, DEMONLOVER seems a product of the post-9/11 world - a not-so-distant future where overwhelming paranoia goads us to preemptively eliminate any form of potential competition before it can do the same to us. And how in doing so, we devour our own tail.

I expect this movie's reputation will grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years.

It's rather sad to watch a talented filmmaker - which French director Olivier Assayaz without a doubt is - taking an original idea and then strangling it with his own hands. Demonlover starts out great - like a 70's spy film, only set in the world of adult Internet sites, which makes the film so much more exciting. And it looks very good, too - as if it takes place in some kind of futuristic sterile world full of bright but cold colours. But in the second half the movie takes a turn towards Lost Highway territory and in the end finds itself exactly where it headed - nowhere. Instead of giving us, viewers, a satisfying resolution of a conflict, the director drags us down the blind alley and shoots us - as well as his own film - in the back. Still, Demonlover has enough to offer to make it worth watching (like a terrific score by Sonic Youth) at least once. It's only the fact that it could be truly great instead of just worth watching, that bothers me

Demonlover is in many ways an interesting movie. The French critics didn't like it, which is a reason on itself to go to see it (the French tend to praise their own stuff most of the time). So, that's what I did. And it leaves you unsettled just like Cronenberg's Crash. Same industrial 'cool' spaces, same underacted performances (Nielsen is brilliant) and all in all a plot that goes off track near the end. When you leave the theatre, you're not sure whether you've seen a good movie or not. So what is it about? Espionage, 3D Manga porn, control & controlled, torture (physically and mentally) and betrayal. Interesting stuff that keeps you hooked on the screen for the first 1,5 hour, but director Assayas overkills the last half hour by adding unnecessary plot twists, unexplained events and an ending that kinda leads to nowhere. Still, the stunning visuals and the Sonic Youth score make it all worth the visit. Also check out Assayas' Irma Vep.