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October 22, 2004 > Arts & Entertainment > Daring French thriller exposes ugly corporate underworld

Daring French thriller exposes ugly corporate underworld

By Jonathan Schumann | Thresher Editorial Staff

French director Olivier Assayas’ demonlover exposes the backstabbing world of multinational corporations with unparalleled visual style and exceptional twists. The film functions as a critique of globalization, an exploration of amoral business practices and as a chic, daring thriller. Connie Nielson (Gladiator) stars as Diane de Monx, a rising talent at VolfGroup, a global corporation exploiting the iniquitous but financially lucrative market of Japanese animated pornography. The film opens as the VolfGroup team travels back to Paris on a posh private jet from a business trip in Tokyo. Diane poisons her coworker’s Evian in the same cold, business-as-usual way she takes dictation or pours a cup of coffee. This early betrayal sets the viewer up for a series of elaborate and increasingly more intense double-crossings and acts of revenge. It turns out that Diane is a double-agent for a rival corporate giant and is engaged in the bitter, violent world of corporate espionage. Everyone she works with at VolfGroup — a mousy, jealous secretary (Boys Don’t Cry’s Chlo’ Sevigny), a pot-smoking American executive (Bound’s Gina Gershon) and a sexually predatory colleague (Les Destinées Sentimentales’ Charles Berling) — threatens to either expose or thwart her efforts. While these conflicts, cat fights and intrigue make it very attractive, the film owes much of its success to Assayas’ visual style. Smooth cuts and innovative camera angles and movement captivate the viewer. This expert camerawork, coupled with the crisp lighting of cinematographer Denis Lenoir (The Clearing) and an uber-cool soundtrack by the band Sonic Youth, makes the film’s formal elements intoxicating. Present in every scene, Nielson, who American audiences know from big-budget fare like the stale John Travolta vehicle Basic, is marvelous in a grueling performance. Sevigny and the always-entertaining Gershon provide ample support. While demonlover is sure to be remembered primarily for its visual success, it also delivers a harrowing message about globalization. With dialogue spoken in French, Japanese and English, and starring actors as diverse as the Danish Nielson, French Berling and Americans Sevigny and Gershon, the film exemplifies the same multinational effort it portrays. Ironically, this successful global collaboration tells a story meant to skewer the amoral business practices that spill over national borders.

DVD Bonuses This two-disc director’s cut edition features over two-and-a-half hours of bonus footage, including interviews with the cast and crew, a Q&A with Assayas, a behind-the-scenes look at recording the soundtrack with Sonic Youth and a making-of featurette. The interviews here are particularly interesting. Nielson comes off as affable and outgoing — the polar opposite of her icy, vindictive character — as she talks about her difficult stunts (jumping from hotel balconies, surviving fiery car crashes) and maintaining her character’s intensity throughout the shoot. Sevigny gives insight into Assayas’ directing style and jabs at him for spending more time working with aesthetics than with the actors. Shockingly, she discloses that over the course of filming, Assayas only gave her two or three lines of direction. The making-of featurette only confirms this. The camera follows Assayas and Director of Photography Lenoir as they compose various shots. It is a fascinating look at how an obsessive visual guru composes his canvas. While Assayas pays great attention to the composition of each shot and the movement of each actor, discussion of performance and line delivery go conspicuously unsaid. As a whole, these features, as DVD bonus materials should, satisfy those who loved the film.

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