Elle

Dir: Paul Verhoeven

2016

**

Paul Verhoeven’s first film in a decade was celebrated across the board, winning many awards and earning some of the year’s finest reviews. I agree that Isabelle Huppert’s performance is one of the best of 2016 but her performance is about the only thing I liked about it. I’ve not read the 2012 novel Oh… by author Philippe Djian on which the film is based but it too was a critical success. Whether the film is an authentic adaptation I do not know, whether the novel is meant as a post-modern cliché comedy is also unknown. Verhoeven wanted to set the film in Boston but the truth is he couldn’t persuade any American actress to take the lead role. He asked Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone, Julianne Moore and Diane Lane. He also asked Marion Cotillard and Carice van Houten but they all declined. It seems that not one of them wanted to play a women who is raped but shrugs off the assault, so as not to let it affect her or her ordered life. Verhoeven said later, on several occasions, that he thought Jennifer Jason Leigh was probably the only American actress who could have done the character justice, but he never asked her because he felt the role needed a big name and hers wasn’t quite big enough. He decided that France would be far more accepting of the subject matter and Isabelle Huppert would be just the sort of actor to take the roll by the proverbial horns. So the film was made in France and the question of whether the film is actually some sort of twisted satire was born. Huppert’s character feels like a parody of characters she has played before and Elle (French for ‘She’ or ‘Her’) feels like a piss take of many a great French thriller that has come before. My first reaction was that Verhoeven was making fun of Michael Haneke by making an exaggerated version of one of his films in the style of Brian De Palma. I thought Isabelle Huppert was a good sport for taking part in it, especially after making such dreadful films like Ma Mere. I thought the Robocop director clearly wasn’t done with making cutting satire and good on him. Then I remembered, the dude made Showgirls. The penny dropped, Elle was meant to be a serious film. Critics (paid ones I might add) have described it as "the most empowering "Rape Movie" ever made, a woman’s complicated response to being raped will draw ire from feminists and others, but it’s one of the bravest, most honest and inspiring examinations of the subject ever put onscreen”. One critic called it a "light-hearted rape-revenge story” which makes me wonder whether they are also in on the whole satire thing? Reporting a rape in order to capture the rapist, thus bringing him to justice and preventing him from raping someone else is considered feminism apparently. Letting the rapist get away with it and allowing the possibility that he may attack again, and even rape someone else is ‘empowering’. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a misguided film since…Showgirls. Once you realise the film is serious it becomes something of a grotesque experience. Gaspar Noe’s 2002 film Irreversible shows a brutal rape but goes a long way in exploring the nature surrounding it. It never once treats the situation as anything other than despicable, and something that needs tackling. Elle trivialises rape, it insults women and men and is about as far from intelligent as you can get, while thinking it is the best thing since sliced bread. This isn’t new ground either. At best Elle is a good Giallo film but without the cool sound effects and great visuals. Even now, I think of the scenes involving a computer game character being raped by a satanic octopus thing and I question whether this film isn’t a misguided satire? I may very well be wrong about the film’s intention but it still didn’t work for me and as much as I thought Verhoeven’s direction and Huppert’s performance were good, I think it should damage their careers somewhat. I always congratulate films that push boundaries but this is sensationalist nonsense without anything new or clever to back itself up with. How it has been so widely celebrated is beyond me, maybe it will be one of those few films that I hate and everyone else loves but I do question a society who like this sort of thing, think it’s clever and has something important to say. There are so many people who avoid French films because they think they’re all like this, it’s such a shame when a new one comes out and is the epitome of a bad stereotype and a tasteless one at that. Funny how it is based on a novel titled Oh.... as that was exactly my reaction once it was over.