What begins as a routinely credible intriguer about industrial espionage stealthily but relentlessly develops into a meditation upon and an expose of the disturbing and complex roles that sex with violence play in global corporate media markets. DEMONLOVER (2002) by Olivier Assayas, maker of stylised French comedy-drama Irma Vep (1996), delivers his very best movie, so far. It’s one of this century’s new classics and an often dazzling picture that’s the most underrated Euro-Asian psychological thriller of its decade.
Despite some quite adverse critical reactions, Assayas' extraordinarily perceptive character-studies of women in control, and women being controlled, overcomes initially baffled reservations about its lack of obvious narrative logic, especially on repeat viewings. With the fascinating central performances, by Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny, and Gina Gershon, there is executive rivalry for management promotions on a brokered virtuality project for securing a world monopoly on ‘adults only’ anime. Cold ambitions are stymied by romantic entanglements and office politics. Cat-burglar exploits result in a clumsy murder and subsequent cover-up, but more answers than questions about frequently bewildering crimes when conventional plotting segues, quite inexplicably, into resolutely horrific surrealism. Assayas’ deeply tragicomic leanings are startling in both aspect and affect.
Demonlover defies expectations and dramatic standards by providing no comforting explanations for those in need of reassurance that the heroine will escape, or at least survive. After upsetting all the ‘wrong’ people by hacking into the forbidden ‘Hellfire Club’ website, the unwary thief is kidnapped for (perversely, off-screen) a systematic ordeal of drug abuse and torture, later thoroughly broken by sadomasochistic experience when she returns to work, at an office now run by a mysterious assistant.
Palpable fetishistic eroticism follows during nightmares of gamely fighting a way out of anomalous captivity. Is this just another weirdo activity in a cyber-sexy damnation trial? Glossily mesmeric and peculiarly anonymous, eager to jettison its rationality, while counter-balancing everyday mundanity with an exotic glamour of hyper-fast edits of intoxicating imagery, Demonlover might appear annoyingly imprecise, yet it's overloaded with tantalising subtexts. It’s ironic, as a recklessly unfocussed critique of sociopathic corporations, and a headlong ride into garishly wondrous oblivion. This is essential viewing for anyone who enjoyed Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), and eXistenZ (1999), or Wenders’ superbly enigmatic Until The End Of The World (1991).
