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View Full Version : Passion (Brian De Palma)



Grouchy
07-20-2013, 09:58 PM
http://micropsia.otroscines.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Passion-Poster.jpg

Grouchy
07-20-2013, 10:01 PM
Apologize in advance if this is considered a 2013 movie. I checked and it opened in the New York Film Festival. It's doubtful that it will get a commercial release, I think.

I predict a lot of people will hate this with a fiery passion, but I liked it. It's a true De Palma movie - split screen, sex as a weapon, masked murderers, screens within the screen... If you saw Side Effects, this is De Palma doing a parody of precisely that type of movie. The final scene is crazy.

That being said, it's not top tier... Nothing even close to the quality of Femme Fatale.

Boner M
07-20-2013, 10:04 PM
It gets a commercial release next month. Ya blew it again, Grouchy.

I agree w/ you though, and I think De Palma's (as ever) more in on the joke than people'll give him credit for. In his Q&A at TIFF last year he said he cast McAdams based on Mean Girls which really says it all.

I'll mainly remember it for the most delirious use of split-screen in his filmography.

transmogrifier
07-21-2013, 01:21 AM
I didn't like it much. It might be a joke, but it's not a very good one. Rapace is borderline terrible.

Boner M
07-21-2013, 03:19 AM
THE END

Grouchy
07-21-2013, 05:48 PM
What? Rapace terrible? I was stunned at how good she was. Her breakdown and the laughing scene were incredible.

This might be the most bananas thriller Brian has ever made. Like how they switch languages for no good reason.

transmogrifier
07-22-2013, 12:00 AM
What? Rapace terrible? I was stunned at how good she was. Her breakdown and the laughing scene were incredible.

This might be the most bananas thriller Brian has ever made. Like how they switch languages for no good reason.

That breakdown is one of the most inept things I've seen in a movie for a long while, on both sides of the camera.

B-side
07-22-2013, 02:30 AM
Re-post from FDT:

I've never been as on board with De Palma as some here. I've never quite been able to muster the enthusiasm expressed by Sven and others. It's not that I don't like what De Palma does, it's that the how doesn't always jive. In theory, De Palma is my kind of filmmaker. His virtuosic camera work alone would make him of serious interest to me. But camp and I have a tumultuous relationship. More often than not, it doesn't work for me. And De Palma is mostly an exception to that rule given that I've never outright disliked any of his work. I'm not huge on films like Dressed to Kill, Raising Cain and Mission to Mars. They're all perfectly watchable and feature impressive moments or scenes, but don't come together as a terrific package. Obsession, however, marked my first De Palma experience that I was very enthusiastic about, and yet its reception has been largely lukewarm. I'd seen and loved a few of his films prior (Blow Out and Phantom of the Paradise and possibly Mission: Impossible, though I may have seen that one afterward), but Obsession felt like the perfect union of everything people loved about De Palma and everything I loved about thrillers with the beautiful veneer of soft focus photography, impeccable lighting and a compelling (and naturally convoluted) narrative. This is where Passion steps in. Passion is currently competing with Obsession as my favorite De Palma. I didn't expect to be as taken with it as I was, but man is it lurid, intense and oneiric in all the right ways. Surveillance and smart phone culture is used as a potent weapon in the narrative, but also a topical thematic subtext that De Palma initially goofs on a bit, then as the narrative slowly slinks back into the shadows, and the sterile corporate interiors become darker and more eerily cold, the new age of technology gains an ambivalence and promulgates a sense of impending danger (along with the symbolic use of the color red implying the same). The first half sees De Palma a bit restrained, allowing the milieu to develop and settle before the final 45 minutes when the shadows invade the screen, the tension creeps up notch by notch and the knot in my stomach feels like I swallowed a brick. Everything unravels and motives grow stronger. Perhaps most important of all, there's not a single redeemable character in the bunch. You have nobody to "root for". There's no one victim, and there's nobody to feel safe with. This is absolutely essential to why the film succeeds to the extent it does. There's no Madonna vs Whore theme when everyone's on the same level of debauchery and scandal.


http://i.imgur.com/kQl0ViH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/egp3W4R.jpg

Boner M
07-22-2013, 02:34 AM
Have you seen Hi, Mom!? Cos you should do that.

B-side
07-22-2013, 02:53 AM
Nein.

Sven
07-22-2013, 04:41 AM
I just showed Hi, Mom! to my wife, actually. "Did you like it?" I ask. "I think so. I dunno... what I think... about Hi, Mom!..." she replies.

Raiders
07-22-2013, 01:34 PM
I just showed Hi, Mom! to my wife, actually. "Did you like it?" I ask. "I think so. I dunno... what I think... about Hi, Mom!..." she replies.

I've seen it three times now, and love it more each time. Definitely top five De Palma for me, maybe top three.

This film has been on my radar for so long I completely forgot about it. Shame it seems to be getting the shaft on release given how long it has taken De Palma to make it after the unfairly-maligned Redacted.

Grouchy
07-22-2013, 01:41 PM
I've seen it three times now, and love it more each time. Definitely top five De Palma for me, maybe top three.

This film has been on my radar for so long I completely forgot about it. Shame it seems to be getting the shaft on release given how long it has taken De Palma to make it after the unfairly-maligned Redacted.
I remember liking Redacted, but it was the found footage version of Casualties of War... didn't seem too inspired.

And Black Dahlia was a failure in almost every way. Of course, love Femme Fatale, always will. That movie is a damn masterpiece.

Rowland
12-09-2013, 09:37 AM
Holy crap, even Brian De-fuckin'-Palma can't escape the teal & orange virus. Otherwise, I very nearly loved this, and just wish I could watch a version that wasn't so trendily color-graded, though I'm a bit more willing to forgive it than usual because it almost functions as deliberate satire.

"You're right, this is crap. Fuck them. Let's find out what the world thinks of my ad, my way."

dreamdead
12-14-2013, 03:19 AM
That last half hour is some of the most delirious stuff I'll see this year, I expect. Demented, operatic (or is it balletic), and double and triple layered study on predatory sexuality. Really liked Karoline Herfurth as Dani the most here--she gets to show the most range, and acquits herself quite well.

The first hour, however, feels a little too much like an exercise to get there. I respect De Palma's glibness in using McAdams' persona from Mean Girls and suggesting that she's merely playing dress up and not legitimately powerful or adult, but it doesn't quite excuse some of the script's inanity. That said, De Palma usually has inanity. Hopefully the good here lingers and resonates. I'd like for it to... sexual betrayal is generally interesting from De Palma.

A reminder that I should see Hi Mom! as well...

number8
12-17-2013, 07:33 PM
I get that he's in on the joke, but who is he satirizing exactly? That's what confused me and why I couldn't fully get on board with it. Crunchy film, but seems half cooked. That final 15 minutes is magnificent though.

dreamdead
12-25-2013, 02:28 PM
Indiewire had a feature critiquing this film's use of lesbian/queer characters:


"Passion"
Just when you thought Vito Russo’s "Celluloid Closet" might be nothing but a historical document, here comes Brian de Palma’s train wreck of a film called "Passion," which yet again features a powerful seducer whose sexuality is linked to her inevitable punishment. Apart from the usual sexism (women fight each other over men and power), de Palma pulls another ugly rabbit out his cliché hat, namely the lesbian side kick Dani, played by German actress Karoline Herfurth. Her open lesbian identity can be used to blackmail her (sexual assault), laugh at her (she is in love with her boss and makes a pass) and must be punished eventually. Her motivation - jealousy, unrequited love and revenge logically lead to her death. The only upside of this: hardly anyone has seen the film... [Toby Ashraf]

There's a way in which I see how Dani is unfairly villainized, made to be the victim by McAdams and then the aggressor by Rapace, but I feel that her ultimate blackmail isn't so much a denigration of LGBT characters so much as entirely in keeping with the betrayal and backstabbing that's preceded it. I actually found Dani to be the most interesting character of the film, and found her to be the emotional core, so the above reading was strange to me.

Grouchy
12-25-2013, 06:26 PM
There's a way in which I see how Dani is unfairly villainized, made to be the victim by McAdams and then the aggressor by Rapace, but I feel that her ultimate blackmail isn't so much a denigration of LGBT characters so much as entirely in keeping with the betrayal and backstabbing that's preceded it. I actually found Dani to be the most interesting character of the film, and found her to be the emotional core, so the above reading was strange to me.
Every idiot in the world has realized by now that making PC critiques of culture pretty much guarantees that someone is going to take them seriously and perhaps even consider them progressive.

number8
12-25-2013, 08:09 PM
There's a way in which I see how Dani is unfairly villainized, made to be the victim by McAdams and then the aggressor by Rapace, but I feel that her ultimate blackmail isn't so much a denigration of LGBT characters so much as entirely in keeping with the betrayal and backstabbing that's preceded it. I actually found Dani to be the most interesting character of the film, and found her to be the emotional core, so the above reading was strange to me.

That's not really the criticism, though. Given the mention of Celluloid Closet, I think he's more talking about the lazy use of cliched stereotypes. The jealous lesbian side character is a pretty worn stock character, like the magical negro.

Bosco B Thug
01-11-2014, 09:44 PM
This was a much more interesting look at the upper echelons than WOWS, generally speaking.