Passion (2012)
Country: GER/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth
Synopsis:
Remake of the French thriller, Crime d'amour, in which the advertising company is now involved in a jeans campaign and the loyal admiring colleague becomes an infatuated lesbian.
Review:
One can see the appeal for the director in this chamber thriller set in glossy modern domestic and office spaces: a narrative based on doubling, a murder perpetrated with a mask and a knife, tenacious down-to-earth cop, and a secondary character whose love makes her vulnerable. He conjures one or two sequences in his best style (a split screen murder buildup, and a climax based around a waking dream with plentiful overhead shots); he even manages a shower scene. However, despite the unerringly impressive Rapace, the whole thing doggedly fails to convince on any level, and is barely an improvement on the original. The production commits at least two faux pas: placements for Apple are so frequent as to be offputting, at one point the back of a laptop filling the entire screen (one anticipates in order to disguise the commencement of an offscreen kiss, but no); and, even more bizarrely, the actor used to play the State Prosecutor is such a doppelgänger for the sleazeball leading man that one is duped into thinking the whole sequence a deranged fantasy on the part of the drugged heroine.
Country: GER/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth
Synopsis:
Remake of the French thriller, Crime d'amour, in which the advertising company is now involved in a jeans campaign and the loyal admiring colleague becomes an infatuated lesbian.
Review:
One can see the appeal for the director in this chamber thriller set in glossy modern domestic and office spaces: a narrative based on doubling, a murder perpetrated with a mask and a knife, tenacious down-to-earth cop, and a secondary character whose love makes her vulnerable. He conjures one or two sequences in his best style (a split screen murder buildup, and a climax based around a waking dream with plentiful overhead shots); he even manages a shower scene. However, despite the unerringly impressive Rapace, the whole thing doggedly fails to convince on any level, and is barely an improvement on the original. The production commits at least two faux pas: placements for Apple are so frequent as to be offputting, at one point the back of a laptop filling the entire screen (one anticipates in order to disguise the commencement of an offscreen kiss, but no); and, even more bizarrely, the actor used to play the State Prosecutor is such a doppelgänger for the sleazeball leading man that one is duped into thinking the whole sequence a deranged fantasy on the part of the drugged heroine.
Country: GER/FR
Technical: col 102m
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth
Synopsis:
Remake of the French thriller, Crime d'amour, in which the advertising company is now involved in a jeans campaign and the loyal admiring colleague becomes an infatuated lesbian.
Review:
One can see the appeal for the director in this chamber thriller set in glossy modern domestic and office spaces: a narrative based on doubling, a murder perpetrated with a mask and a knife, tenacious down-to-earth cop, and a secondary character whose love makes her vulnerable. He conjures one or two sequences in his best style (a split screen murder buildup, and a climax based around a waking dream with plentiful overhead shots); he even manages a shower scene. However, despite the unerringly impressive Rapace, the whole thing doggedly fails to convince on any level, and is barely an improvement on the original. The production commits at least two faux pas: placements for Apple are so frequent as to be offputting, at one point the back of a laptop filling the entire screen (one anticipates in order to disguise the commencement of an offscreen kiss, but no); and, even more bizarrely, the actor used to play the State Prosecutor is such a doppelgänger for the sleazeball leading man that one is duped into thinking the whole sequence a deranged fantasy on the part of the drugged heroine.