Elle (2016)

It´s an insidious disease this; when people reach a certain notoriety or fame, in the eyes of quite a few people they can´t seem to artistically do anything wrong whatsoever. If you have made a name for yourself, whether that be in music, film, art etc., you have reached a godly status and are henceforth impeccable and unassailable as a creator. Nothing can touch you, and if by any chance you happen to see through the shoddy seams of the emperor´s robes, you are accused of not having depth enough to "get" the immortal creator´s vision. It looks like shit,it sounds like shit, it smells like shit and it sure taste like shit, but hey, what do you know?! It´s not really shit, it´s your own limited, narrowminded self that stops you from seeing what a transcendental masterpiece it really is. That is the kind of laughable nonsense being spouted from the mouths of the fawning idiots. Blindness sure comes in multiple forms, sigh... Verhoeven has made one decent film, Basic Instinct, and while not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, it at least had a certain tension and coldness to it that I remember I found tittilating. This piece of trash however? One of the worst films I´ve ever watched, it actually beggars belief.The main character is a middle aged woman who runs a gaming company, and one day out of nowhere a ski-masked man attacks her in her home and proceeds to rape her. Normally after such a harrowing experience one would think that the victim would experience severe mental trauma and would struggle to cope in her everyday life, because that is the hard reality, right? Of course it is, but hey what do you know? It turns out that this rape don´t faze our main character that much, in fact she doesn´t report it to the police, she really don´t want revenge, and she casually mention the incident to her friends. And hey, her friends, it turns out, aren´t that bothered by the episode either, just one of those pesky things that happens, you know. Our main character goes about her life, running her company, interacting with her retarded son ( who for the life of him can´t see that the baby his fiancee has just given birth to can´t be his, because you know, he himself and his fiancee is white as snow and the baby is at least four shades darker than him. Of course the baby is his, of course it is. And Verhoeven gets away with writing this shit?!!! ), her man-eating mother, her academic failure of an ex etc. In between the daily goings on of work and family feuds, a few more rapes is thrown in for good measure, none of them with any tension what so ever. After a while it´s revealed that her rapist is her good neighbour, the one she has a crush on. You would think that this revelation would destroy her world, but considering that the first rape didn´t really leave dent in her, this don´t make much of a negative impression on her artificial soul either. On the contrary, it turns out she quite enjoys being raped, and in between the rapes, she´s having dinner with him and the two of them seems to have quite the lovey-dovey relationship. One usually have such relationships with one´s rapist, doesn´t one? Nothing out of the ordinary I would think. If you want to sink your teeth into a film that is neither her nor there ( what does it want to be? a dark comedy? a psychological thriller? a family drama? a deep commentary on the dehumanizing of rape? an erotic romp in the delights of s&m? who knows and frankly who cares ), a film where every character is behaving and reacting like automatons and as such impossible to empathise with in any way ( none of them is expressing any real emotion, no response to the different situations occuring is in any sense close to reality ), a film despite it´s premise managing to display zero tension and thrill, by all means, go right ahead. Just be aware that the golden robe the emperor is wearing is an illusion, what is adorned around his body is on the contrary filthy, stinking, worthless rags. He is not a god at all, he is a beggar. His crown is mud.

Having read many reviews on this film, it's fair to say Elle splits opinions; it's either a masterfully acted, powerful psychological drama, or a convulted piece of drivel with gratutitious sex and violence. I was intrigued to watch this after reading some of the reviews, particularly of Hubbert's 'Oscar-worthy' performance, though disappointly, I happen to share the latter viewpoint. This is a film trying to be clever, and getting it all wrong. I have so many issues with this film; Firstly, for it to be a great psychological drama there has to be some genuine intrigue as to who the mystery rapist is. Considering there's only really about 2 or 3 possible suspects, one of whose character's is never built sufficiently for it to be him, and another is quickly suspected then discounted in the same breath, it hardly becomes a real whodunnit... more of a baffling why... and even more bafflingly/ troublingly why she reacts like that. Also, why reveal his identity part way through and then have nothing come of it... it was quite anti-climatic (unlike all of her sexual encounters). The (totally pointless) back story of the serial killer Dad is perhaps meant to provide some explanation for why she troublingly seems to let all men, except her ex-husband and some random employee at work, walk all over her. She's presented as obstentiously this hard-nosed women who'll take no prisoners at work and who'll never forgive her ex who once hit her, but then but will forgive the random masked stranger who comes in, beats the shit out of her and rapes her repeatedly, yeah sure that makes sense. Perhaps she's meant to subconsciously feel guilty or unworthy of love, but that's never really expressed and she seems to have no qualms about cheating on her childless best friend and admiring herself in the mirror, so perhaps that's not the case. As someone else has mentioned, it's not just Michelle who has bizarre emotionless reactions to events. Really no-one in the film really reacts with anything even remotely resembling human emotion to anything that happens to them, making it genuinely difficult to relate to any of the characters. Her son seems absurdly dumb, grinning inanely in front of the clearly mixed raced baby in front of his black friend; her friend is oddly calm on hearing her best friend and husband have been cheating on her, the uber religious woman isn't at all mad/ sad her husband's dead, everyone is allowed to say the most offensive things to each other and just get away with it and after one car accident, two affairs, three break-ups, multiple deaths, several rapes and a cacophany of other shit that would bring down even the strongest individual no-one cries.... the whole thing is bizarre!The plot has more stories (and plot holes!) in it that a latin american telenovela. Everyone has some psychological disorder/ lazy stereotyping; the son is a lazy layabout, good for nothing, his girlfriend is a blonde pyscho, her mother is in denial of ageing/ ever been married to a serial killer, there's the pretty pious one, the ex with a thing for younger yoga instructors, the clueless, kind best friend, the sleazy lothario best friend's husband, the token black guy, the list goes on... The most troubling thing in this film is the portayal of woman and what they either do, or have to put up having done to them; Michelle, the main character; receives physical assaults for the actions of her father when she was a child, sexual harrassment at work by an employee, verbal assault by an employee, is used for sex by her best friend's husband - despite callling it off- after a car accident which leaves her in crutches and his response was 'well we won't be skiing' and then plays dead during intercourse, is harrassed by journalists and is raped several times - something she claims she can't report to the police because of her past involvement with her father's crimes, in someway implying she believes/ accepts she deserves it, and is beaten to the point of near unconsciousness. Her mother is used by a younger guy who wants to screw the wife of a serial killer, her friend accepts the betrayal of her best friend and suggests to move in with her and the daughter in law is presented as erratic, unfaithful, controlling and irresponsible. If anyone has pyschological issues in this film, then I'd say it's the director! He has a disturbing attitude towards women. If fact, it's pretty ironic this film is called Elle/ Her, as the perspective couldn't be any more masculine; of course she works making erotic, demeaning to women video games, of course she's letting herself be abused by a stranger, taken advantage of by a friend and showing herself as sexually provactive to a neighbour. Of course all women masturbate over a man across the street moving furniture - or they do Verhoeven's sick head. Of course she's wearing revealing, rip openable dresses and sexy underwear to be raped. Of course she tells her friends calmly of the rape, and then suggest they order food. Of course she has a terrible relationship with her mother, a disapproving reaction to her son's girlfriend and a jealous reaction to her ex's new partner. Verhoeven has made some kind of sick fantasy of his into a film, where this women secretly enjoys being attacked, beaten and raped. The rape scenes are genuinely shocking and if i believe they were done to show the horror of sexual violence I could just about contenance their inclusion, but to me they feel gratutitous and profoundly disturbing to watch, let alone film. In the week in which the topic of male director's subjecting female actors to distressing scenes in the name of art, it's worth again considering whether this is art, or abuse of power. Of course in his eye's a 'strong female character' means detatched and devoid of emotions and complicit in her own abuse. I really struggle to see how anyone can watch this film and view any of the female characters as strong, any of the reactions believable and any of the plot line convincing. Some good acting (Isabelle Hubbert should have saved her talents for a film worthy of them) and good camera work aside, this film is a farce.

This film can be best described as an examination of the portrayal of rape in the audio-visual medium, and starts it with just that. The protagonist, Elle, a middle-aged lady, head of a video game company, becomes a victim of a brutal attack by a masked man in her own home. She is then seen later on to be actively critiquing the CG animation medieval fantasy rape scenes being made by her company. She barely has time to go to the hospital and went on to get tested for STD instead and not even bothering to report the incident to the police. Deadlines are tight in the office.Spoilers are necessary for people who are being introduced to this film that should be restricted to that introductory scene if only to serve as a forewarning. The film should be considered synonymous with the word rape. Doing so will not dampen the appreciation for this film for that only just barely scrapes the surface. The meaty aspect of this film is in the methods that Elle used in identifying her predator, and that subversiveness in infusing black comedic elements to a very a dark subject. An example of that would be how the rape at the start of the film would be replayed twice and with each iteration of the horrific, horrendous, hideous incident, the humor pervades. It is weirdly amazing and twisted. That's what I consider the Verhoeven genius. My knowledge of French-language films is fairly limited, don't know the language, and I've only seen Huppert on film once before, Ma mere, where she played a character that's not really very flattering, and my ignorance of her stature in French cinema certainly didn't help. But, man, she's gives a tour-de-force performance portraying an embattled lady having to also contend with domestic and workplace problems.It's sublime how the clever script, the musical score, superb cast and the cute black cat named Marty really helped elevate this thriller into becoming a window to the world of a steadfast but flawed lady that still manages to be such a paragon of resilience.My rating: A-flat.

Isabelle Huppert migh have signed a pact with the devil. She´s still incredibly sexy at over 60 years old and as unique as always. "Elle" it´s all about her (duh) and no other actress could have possibly made it. A classy production with moments of great tension but I find this to be a character study more than anything else. A woman and her circumstance: her family, her work, her friends and, of course, her sexuality. It might be controversial but it´s not cheap. She´s not an ordinary woman and her father and her mother both have an important role in the film as to know why. Everything else is plausible due to her condition, from her son´s character issues to her affairs and further. Nothing is taken lightly, every situation or decision is determined by her psychology.Now, I´ve seen how it enrages a lot of people. I guess they´re not familiar with Huppert´s work. There´s, of course, "La pianiste" but I find "Ma mère" to be worse. She´s always had a taste for moral uncertainty and she´s never been afraid of playing with its limits. Verhoeven is similar and this is a clear highlight in his appalling filmography. I wonder what would happen if "The Clockwork Orange", for instance, was made today? I´m not a fan of it but it´s widely regarded as a classic. We shouldn´t forget these are movies, not real life. Violence or pshycopathy are still a part of the human condition, however unpleasant they might be. I´m unfortunately close enough to rape reality to assert my opinion. "Elle" isn´t overly serious and never tries to be more than it is: two entertaining hours of drama.