ELLE (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Charles Berling, Jonas Bloquet, Anne Cosigny, Virginie Efira
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven
GENRE: Arthouse/Thriller/Black Comedy


What does the daughter of a notorious mass murderer do when she grows up? She becomes an entrepreneur--developing bizarre, violent, sexually aberrant video games...what else??? And from the opening scene of Elle--which smacks you right in the kisser...POW!--her life is set on a course to become its own live version of those games.

Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher, Heaven's Gate, Amour) KILLS in her role as Michelle--a woman who defies labels. She has an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in her back pocket for this one; a gutty, gritty performance that's as physically demanding--she bounces off the walls a lot--as it is emotionally wrenching. She doesn't wear her emotions on her sleeve, however. No...she is the Ice Queen. But it's all in there building up like Mount St. Helens getting ready to blow.  Michelle is bent on finding the identity of  a man who brutally raped her, but she won't go to the police. She'll do it her way, in her own time, as she goes about her daily life. 

"Elle is soooo FRENCH," my cohort Jill observed. Indeed. In French cinema you can address just about anything--murder, mayhem, perversion--and it's all done in such a breezy style that it's bound to elicit a smile.There's a line in there where someone says (to the effect of) that guilt should never stop anyone from doing just what they want to do. It's clear that director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Robocop, Showgirls) took that to heart in making Elle. He got out of Hollywood, where this film could never and would never be made, as it pushes the envelope beyond Tinseltown standards in terms of its frank and brutal portrayal of psychopathic sexual behavior. It blurs the boundaries of film genre. It's a taut and suspenseful thriller, and just when you think that's exactly what it is, in come elements of the darkest kind of black humor. It's a romance too--in the kinkiest sort of way (without giving too much away)--that makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like a Disney movie by comparison!  Elle is tapping into a world of fantasy taboo that some will find uncomfortable to watch, while others may grasp that sometimes we can develop a perverse fascination for that which we find initially most repulsive.  

Elle is not for those with weak bladders, because if you trot down the hall for even a couple of minutes, you'll be left in the dust. The film moves at breakneck speed, and never takes a breather. But keeping up with its twists and turns is half the fun. The other half is watching a transcendent talent at the top of her game--63 years old (in real life) with this and that popping and flopping out here and there, still as sexy and alluring a presence as any I've seen heat up the screen in recent memory. 

Delightful, decadent fun. 

Brilliant!!! 

Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

I always suspected Tim was a pervert. Now I know for sure! If I had to create a subtitle for Elle, it would read: "a plethora of possibilities." As a black-and-white thinker, I'm not big on movies that leave me wondering what they're about. But then, that's the raison d'etre of French filmmaking.

I'm also not big on mixing film genres. A thriller should be just that, a thriller. Much of Elle made me feel both terrified and personally violated. But when the story exhibited moments of dark humor, I wasn't laughing. (Like I said before, I'm a b&w thinker.) Still, Ms. Huppert deserves an Oscar for playing 'the most physically demanding role of the year.' Those peppy dance routines in La La Land don't hold a candle to her gyrations!

Along with everything else, I wondered about, the significance of the title.  Elle? The literal translation is "she." But according to The Urban Dictionary, elle can also mean 'feminine, super pretty and sexy.' So I guess the title works. Sort of. But that's the thing about this noirish movie. It can mean a lot of things....sort of.

Grade: C

AMOUR (2012)

Rated : PG-13

Stars: Jean-Louis Tritignant,  Emmanuelle Riva,  Isabelle Huppert
Director: Michael Haneke
Genre:  Art House/Drama



The enduring image I will always have of Jean-Louis Tritignant is that of the race car driver in  the superb 1966 film,  A Man And A Woman . So there's a disconcerting aspect to seeing him onscreen today as an Octogenarian (which he is) in Amour,  the Oscar nominated drama from director Michael Haneke. 

Time happens.

And as Time (that old gypsy man) drags us kicking and screaming down this one-way street,  most of  those who do not meet a premature death will eventually end up like the Parisian couple Georges (Tritignant) and Anne, (Emmanuelle Riva) in this movie. That's stark realism, man. And that's what Amour deals us. It's a stiff dose of here's-your-worst-nightmare-only-it's-real--that thing we never signed up for...old age and decrepitude.    

Georges and Emmanuelle are conversing inside their apartment one day when she suddenly checks out...face gone blank and unresponsive. She's had a stroke and, to make a long synopsis short, goes downhill from there. Now she's partially paralyzed and bedridden, and Georges is her caregiver. 
He gets to do all the fun stuff like haul her into the bathroom and prop her up on the toilet. At some point it's  just down to changing her diaper. This is the first two-thirds of the movie. 

Now anybody who has had an elderly and/or infirmed parent has been there, done that. So why rub our faces in it here? Because we are spared none of it in Amour . It  goes on and on until you are ready to throw up your hands and say what's the point, and just about then you get the point (or at least I did) that what had initially appeared to be the wife's story is actually the husband's story. The metamorphosis  he undergoes from compassionate caregiver to...well...something else. And we need all of the unpleasant business leading up to it to properly put ourselves in his shoes and ask what would we do. 

Nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, I'd not be surprised at all if the 85 year-old Riva takes the Best Actress prize--her challenging performance here is that good. Let's say at least that she deserves it, but you know how these things go. (We're not all that far removed from those idiots who excoriated  the French for having the intelligence and the foresight--and maybe just the bad taste of experience in their mouths--to not go along with Dubya's little foray into Iraq. How much of an anti-French hangover still lingers is anybody's guess.)

Suffice it to say that Amour--despite the title--is not a date movie. I pity the unwitting guy who took his best girl to see it on Valentine's day. I wonder who she's with now. 
  
Grade:  B +