Customer Reviews

Demonlover

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Compare this with 'Summer Hours' or 'Les Destinees' and you'll see that Olivier Assayas has as wide a range of styles as any current filmmaker I can think of.

That said, this surreal, intentionally obtuse story of corporate intrigue centering around world domination of anime porn, makes less and less sense, climaxing with an `ironic twist' you can see coming from several miles off, and leaving one with the feeling that the film is slightly less intelligent than one might have hoped.

On the other hand, It did improve on a second viewing. While the ending still bugged me, the odd, slightly irrational middle felt more in control and intentional, more a comment on it's main character than I caught the first time around.

One of those films that can be enjoyed as a high-end, visceral, well made ride, as long as you don't demand perfection or high art.

This highly sensual film uses the slick Emma Peel-in-a-skintight-jumpsuit-meets-the-Matrix veneer that most people associate with high stakes business acquisitions, fast cars and corporate espionage . . . and for the first half of the movie, that is exactly what is delivered---intrigue on a multi-national and multi-million dollar level showcased in exquisitely neoned Japan, overseas business class flights and minimalist board rooms. Diane, played to perfection by Connie Nielsen is the Emma Peel of a French investment house intent on acquiring a monopoly on Japanese animated pornography. Perfectly dressed and coiffed, she epitomizes the business woman who has it all: brains, savvy and a polished understated unfluctuating demeanor that make her hard to read and hard to penetrate. We watch her intriguingly non-react as she puts a woman colleague out of commission, discovers that someone else knows what she has done, make deals with an Internet pornography competitor on the metro and all around suppresses her intrinsic sense of womanhood as she stands by and watches----no smiles apologetically----a piece of Japanese anime explicit with enough sexist content to render anyone with the vaguest sense of feminism a bad case of the hives. The fimmaker's vision of people in general in a world consumed by a consumerism so out of control that it feeds off its own negative energy, is blurred; the defining line between men and women eroded by a viciously amoral competition.

Then comes the second half of the movie where so many things seem to happen for no real reason at all. Yes, we can see the varying factions surface as the desire to win control becomes more sharply delineated---but instead of making it all work somehow, where the message, although hidden, can be revealed by some careful consideration, the series of images seem to just run amok. At the end, Diane has reformatted herself a la Laura Croft to deliver the consumer with that which he desires. The message: I am unsure---perhaps intense interplay produces human anime with little sensibility other than winning the competition and delivering product. An unhumbled Diane glares out at the world from a computer screen---is she beaten---no---she has just metamorphed.

This film is not recommended to everyone. Those looking for a fluid plot will not be satisfied with its second half. However, if you enjoy the sense of the real world being shrunk even smaller in a global marketplace where nationality and language are no longer real issues and the Internet serves as a conduit for salving any desire, you may enjoy this director's vision.

When this opened here in San Antonio, the ad in the paper was very small. Upon arriving at the theater, I was astounded being the only person in the theater on a Saturday morning. Leaving the theater, I was like the Iraqi Army: in a state of shock and awe. I'm not sure why several reviewers here are trashing this film, because it is reflecting the times in which we live. For those of you who want to return to the days of Wizard of Oz, the Sound of Music and It's a Wonderful Life....stay in your homes and rent those DVDs because you just aren't ready to accept the new conceptual films that are coming from Europe.

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 spoiler 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 2 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.

Ok, it doesn't rhyme, but that is what this movie is. So if you're thinking, cool cast, Connie, Chloe, Gina; I'll give it a try, think again. The acting is just fine all around. Hats off to them. But the movie is sooooooooo slow. The payoff ain't worth time. It is about corporate espionage and some Japanimation porn. If you want a dark twisted movie, rent Dirty Pretty Things. That movie rocks. Late.

This is, bar none, one of the worst movies I have ever viewed. It isn't bad like "Pluto Nash" bad (ie: funny bad) or "Godzilla" bad (low budget), instead it is one of the most convoluted, pretentious and self-important films ever made. The plot is actually interesting for a little while, but the movie suffers from "art-film wannabe" complex, meaning that the director thinks that confusing plot and dialogue make for classy, understated art. It is as if they thought "hey, some pedantic critic will find a theme/deep meaning for this work if we make it dark and use sparse dialogue!". All the more confusing is the use of American and British actors in what is essentially a French film; the bad French accents from the leading ladies is distracting and annoying. While it is generally well-acted, the performances reek of pretense and self-importance. Worst by far is the writing and the editing, which conspire to render this all but unwatchable. If you want a good euro-thriller, rent the original Dutch "The Vanishing", but stay AWAY from Demonlover.

For those of you who think Demonlover is a horror movie, because the title sounds like it, furrgetit! Demonlover is the title of a Japanese animated series, which like many things has no bearing on the story.

I kept waiting and still waiting. Waiting for this movie to make sense. It don't, it never will. Some might think the movie is artsy even engrossing. It is artsy in a way but it's more gross than engrossing. This is obviously a case of one man's treasure is another man's junk. I'm the latter.

The story, if you want to call it that, is ostensibly about the perversive influence of pornography on the internet and an unholy competition, no make that battle, between two giants of internet pornography to land a contract/merger? with a Japanese animation company. I didn't see the connection either but apparently the pornographers were interested in the new virtual realty aspect of animation for their purposes. Connie Nielsen plays the part of Diane de Monx, an up and coming executive who is duplicitous in that she is involved in corporate espionage for a competing company, while having the protection of the company CEO

CONCLUSION

I'm only writing this review because several reviewers gave it a four star rating. This is highly inflated. I'm giving it two stars but only because it did hold my interest til the end.(I kept trying to make sense of it). Oh, one more thing. Did I mentioned that the movie is in French and some Japanese so you get to read enlish subtitles throughout the movie.

I really liked this movie and I thought it was very beautiful in a very different way that may be the way of the future.
This fast paced thriller shows the corporate world for what it is: it is an impersonal machine moving on its own, alliances shifting every second, one cannot trust anybody, everybody and everything can be bought and sold, everybody is being watched, privacy is an illusion.
The plot is rather simple, and every new development in it just shows that there is no limit to how low people will go to move up the food chain.
It's interesting that I saw a number of French movies recently with a similar portrayal of the business world: "Read my lips" and "In my skin" come to mind, and they are both great. I guess something is in the French air.
I thought that the cinematography was very sleek - fast moving cameras, lots of close ups reflected the chaotic pace of modern life. The parts of low resolution video created a futuristic feeling of a new world, where you cannot be sure what is real and what is virtual reality.
I really liked Connie Nielsen in the main part; one just cannot keep one's eyes off her. I realized that I saw her before in mediocre films (Devil's advocate and Gladiator) that didn't do her justice. I loved her hair, make-up and clothes in "Demonlover" - they show a very modern, sophisticated, sleek and sassy woman who knows what she is worth, doesn't play weak to attract men, and uses her sex appeal mercilessly.
I thought Gina Gershon was perfectly cast as a high-level business executive from Holliwood, I thought there was so much irony in it.

Forget about trying to follow the plot. It's useless; yet, in a strange way you know exactly what's going on. This isn't about one thing, (no Hollywood connect-the-dots-type of storytelling). The film is about the things that people in high places do for money and power, which is basically anything and everything: from murder to porn to...you name it! The internet-trash-billionaire industry is a backdrop of sorts to explore just how vile and corrupt people can be. These jet setters have one god: money; and they'll kill, cheat and destroy to get it, even if they never "physically" see it.

The film could well be an expose of 21st century corporate corruption that has made the headlines so often recently just about everyhwere on the planet.

The objective of the game is: move out of the way, I want the power, the money, the glory. Pretty, greedy people. These players have sold their souls to the demon of Mammon, the oldest transaction in the book, but toyed here with expensive computerized gadgets.

There's more to this movie than meets the eye. This seems to be a new trend in the cinema: telling one story on the surface, while the "real" movie plays just beneath it. Impatient viewers, forget this one. But if you like an involving, slick, very entertaining flick, try this little masterpiece of cyber-malice.
A most enlightening piece of work. This is the sort of movie that throws the so-called "glamour" of corrupt "high rollers" right into delete, where it belongs.

Connie Nielsen has never been better. This is her first, true star-making vehicle.

Connie Nielsen (of GLADIATOR fame) plays the ruthless businesswoman Diane to icy perfection in this oddly compelling internet thriller, DEMONLOVER.

Scheming to take control of the high stakes contract from coworker, Karen, Diane dopes her competition in order to gain access to the catbird seat above the glass ceiling at her media company's management. However, the impending merger between her company, a US partner, and some Tokyo affiliates suddenly turns sour when her boss, Volt, discovers that Demonlover -- the internet's most popular Manganese interactive video game -- is secretly a front for "Hell Fire Club," a site dedicated solely to a secret airing of torture against women. Before she can figure out how to save the business, Karen is suddenly pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery in ways that grow more and more disturbing ... until, at last, she questions whether or not she could possibly be connected with the entire affair!

The film boasts some great performances. The extras include some quick interviews with major cast members (including Chloe Sevigny) discussing the process of filmmaking. The soundtrack is provided by Sonic Youth, and it blends very well with the subject matter.

DEMONLOVER will not be a thriller for everyone, but there's something there for anyone who's interested in giving writer/director Olivier Assayas's yarn a single viewing.