Demonlover

Plot synopsis:
Diane de Monx (Nielsen) is an executive trying to negotiate a deal to acquire the rights to the productions of a Japanese anime studio, which will soon include three-dimensional hentai, for the Volf Corporation. To facilitate the acquisition, she eliminates her superior, Karen (Dominique Reymond), and assumes control of her portfolio, her business partner Hervé (Berling), and her assistant Elise (Sevigny). Elise, however, despises Diane and works to frustrate her negotiations at every opportunity. Diane and Hervé travel to Japan to close the deal, and they enjoy a sexual flirtation which is unfulfilled at that time and seem to grow to like one another.
Having acquired the rights, the Volf Corporation attempts to enter into a deal for distribution with an American Internet company called Demonlover, represented by Elaine Si Gibril (Gershon). Diane, however, has actually been a spy all along for Demonlover's main competition, Mangatronics, meeting with a mysterious handler on occasion to pass along information on the Demonlover deal. Meanwhile, Diane discovers that Elaine's company is a front for a website called the Hellfire Club, an interactive torture web site dealing with extreme sadomasochism broadcast in real-time. When confronted with these charges, Demonlover praises Hellfire Club but claims no ties to it whatsoever.
In order to seal the deal for Mangatronics, Diane is sent by her handler to steal data from the computer in Elaine's hotel room. Before Diane can download the information, Elaine enters the hotel room and notices Diane's presence. They struggle, eventually culminating in the suffocation of Elaine. Diane checks to see if she can make an escape, but then discovers Elaine's body is missing. Elaine, who was not dead, uses the last of her strength to club Diane over the head. Diane is knocked unconscious, and Elaine passes out due to blood loss sustained from injuries in the struggle. When Diane awakens, she is in Elaine's hotel room, and everything is completely cleaned up. There is no evidence of a murder, burglary, or struggle.
At this point, the narrative structure of the film more or less breaks down, although we do learn a great deal more about the characters. It is revealed that Demonlover does indeed own the Hellfire Club. It is also revealed that Elise, who it is suggested is a spy for Demonlover, actually works for Hervé, who is also likely associated with Demonlover and by extension the Hellfire Club. Hervé admits as much on a date with Diane later in the film. The two become intimate in bed, but Hervé goes too far and rapes Diane. However, the second time she is raped, Diane manages to reach over into her handbag, into which she had previously placed a pistol. Diane fires at Hervé's temple and he dies instantly. In the end, Diane herself is forced into the Hellfire Club. She awakens in a dungeonlike room, on a mattress, dressed in a vinyl suit and with a wig. Beside the mattress there are pictures of Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel in The Avengers (a 1960s television show, which had an episode entitled "The Hellfire Club" that was subsequently banned from American TV for the so-called "provocative" nature of Mrs. Peel's costume). Diane attempts to escape, and is almost successful. However, upon driving her getaway car she is involved in a car accident. The escape fails.
The final scene takes place in an American household. A teen-aged boy logs on to the Hellfire Club website using his father's credit card. He then fills out a detailed fantasy of what he would like done to the woman on the screen, who turns out to be Diane. He then allows it to play in the background as he does his science homework. Diane looks up at the camera in her room, helpless, but also, in a sense, suggesting an indictment of the character. The final shot pans from the computer screen – a window from which Diane looks out helplessly – to the boy's science homework – answering problems while handling a DNA model that he seems to have constructed.

Tags: cult, suspenseful, murder, violence, sci-fi

Review:
Clearly, the ending is open to thematic interpretation, but I think Assayas is just saying that if our species isn't more careful, we'll end up like one-dimensional characters in a video game of our own devising - sure, winner takes all, but the rest of us suffer enormously.Narrative ambiguity aside, DEMONLOVER is the great Hitchcockian/Cronenbergian espionage fantasia I've been waiting for.
(Like the animé porn within the story, Hollywood movies today represent no more than a calculated corporate commodity.)  More than any other film from the last 2½ years, DEMONLOVER seems a product of the post-9/11 world - a not-so-distant future where overwhelming paranoia goads us to preemptively eliminate any form of potential competition before it can do the same to us.
It's a far more subtle and nuanced movie than the kind of head trip movies that kids go for these days ("Requiem for a Dream," bleh!), and the Sonic Youth score and cinematography are terrific.I was originally attracted to the film on the strengths of Assayas' other films--all three I've seen ("Irma Vep", "Late August/Early Sept.", "Les Destinees Sentimentales") excellent and each in its own way unique.
Lastly, the film is a devastating look at the way big media corporations hide their involvement in anti-social projects under the veneer of 'just business' or, if they went to the Harvard Business School, 'shareholder value'.
Almost everybody that has or had some relation with a major corporation,  knows how greed, corruption and desire for power move everything inside, so nobody will deem unrealistic when people have to die to achieve the company business plan.During the whole setup and presentation DEMONLOVER shines as the best real world spy movie seen lately, but sadly, the second half lose strength and the story get nowhere.
Some scenes and storylines have not continuity (like a piece is cut or missing during editing) and the end is disappointing and unnecessary.The movie is however worth watching.
The acting is very good and for a French movie, most actors are well known in America like Connie Nielsen or Chloe Sevigny.
A few people could get upset for some porn (anime and human) showed during the film, but because that part of the story occurs in Japan,  the gross scenes are digitally shadowed..
I must slam this film if only to reclaim the 90 minutes or so that I cannot ever regain (I ffwd through the last half hour.) The Mrs. and I loved Irma Vep and were intrigued enough by the premise and cast of Demonlover to have a look.
This film has an excellent look and feel, so you're taken in at first, until you realize there's no real reason for any of the action and you dislike all the characters, and that's just dislike, because you're not really involved enough to actually HATE them.
Interesting stuff that keeps you hooked on the screen for the first 1,5 hour, but director Assayas overkills the last half hour by adding unnecessary plot twists, unexplained events and an ending that kinda leads to nowhere.
A slick thriller sans thrills, this cosmopolitan drama inches its way along with sinister rumbling undercurrents which rumble sinisterly though 90 minutes of sketchy thumbnail scenes which when pieced together create an aura of mystery and intrigue with the mystery being the answer to the question what the hell is this stupid film about and the intrigue being something to do with a website which is really, really, really hard to get into, unless you're a kid with Dad's Mastercard, having to do with torture and violent video games.
Imagine David Lynch as an arrogant Frenchman who loathes human nature, and you will get the "feel" of the mobius strip head trip that is "Demonlover." (As such this film has selected a very small audience that will appreciate it.) Beautiful women and shady men globe hop from country to country, hotel to night club to boardroom to bed, backstabbing and murdering each other along the way while trying to obtain the rights to a sick Japanese magna porno-site that is secretly a gateway to a highly disturbing interactive live pay-per-view torture site.Cold camera work, techno music, ambient sound effects, and flashy editing daze the viewer into an almost dream-like state that becomes increasingly more disturbing as the plot thickens.
Parts of "Demonlover" are nearly incoherent, as the characters are constantly double-crossing each other, and there seems to be not one single scene where media (in the form of television, porn, computers, cell phones, music, advertising and product placement) is not in the background reminding these heartless and shallow human beings that money makes the world go round, everyone and everything can be bought or sold for the right price, and there's a market for everything in a global community (perhaps even our souls).
If you absolutely must see this movie for some reason, like it's required for "Bad Film 101," or a deranged Chloë Sevigny fan has a gun to your head and demands that you view it from beginning to end (a) rent it, do not buy it or even pay rep theater prices, (b) prepare a topic ahead of time that you can meditate upon as soon as your attention for the movie is exhausted (my guess: within 20 minutes, so have a good 109 minutes of meditation material ready).Am I being too harsh?
The point of the movie is this: if you've spent any time over the last decade or so feeling thoroughly creeped out by the multinational media culture that increasingly dominates our lives - simultaneously boring and tittilating us with porn, reality tv, lifestyle fantasies, entertainment gossip, etc.
Chloe Sevigny came across as quiteannoyed with Assayas and his crew.Ultimately, demonlover, like many similar films, is a boringdowner.
I truly thought this was a great arty brutal look at corporate culture euro style.I recommend this movie to anyone who likes to kick back & be involved & enthralled in a fast paced dark film.
Demonlover starts out great - like a 70's spy film, only set in the world of adult Internet sites, which makes the film so much more exciting.
This is a great film that does not overstep the boundaries of entertainment, as there are really no explicit scenes to be seen, yet it leaves a very strong message about the life people are creating (or rather destroying) through their decisions and actions..
So that we can be hooked into a heightened version of a world we know, one of competiteveness, desires and urges, and dragged along.It's an interesting story, with rival companies vying for control of the lucrative anime market, and lots of deal-breaking and espionage.
There are also plenty of 'missing' scenes, where you wonder what has happened during that time, and this makes the movie very hard to follow.
The characters were not at all convincing, they are very placid regarding everything that happens around them, but what really disgusted me were the porn scenes you have to watch in this movie.
I failed to see their use, even if they were relevant for the character's profile, a 10 sec long scene would have been enough.In conclusion, I was really disappointed by this movie, I really think it could have been a better one (not very good, anyway).
One of the best movies I have ever seen..........and I have seen most of the north american movies that have come out in the last 25 years and many of the foreign films as well.Connie Nielson was first rate as the corporate spy....and Chloe Sevigny is a revelation!
Charles Berling as the corporate competitor and manipulator was worth the price of a movie ticket alone.The film is about the boardroom and bedroom activities of two competing corporations and was shot in France, Japan and the U.S. The Director uses unique camera techniques....with a David Cronenberg style...edgy, fast paced and with a collage of colours.
(the dialogue switching back and forth between french and english...was refreshing and unique)Corporate Intrigue, manipulation, violence, sex, murder, bondage, this film has it.......definitely in my top 10 of all time..
It had something to do with porn and the Internet, so it feels very dated although, like French attempts at pop music, you know it's straining, yearning to be cool.As in the case with Clean, the director appears to have somehow got money from foreign sources in addition to the French governmentthus the need to have the foreign settings.
It's not that I can't deal with the lack of story or ambiguity, on the contrary i love open ended and ambiguous films, but don't be fooled this is just a sloppy mess which makes very little sense on any level: literal, subconscious, or even artistic.
There are so many things about this movie i find ridiculous, things start to happen then never end up going anywhere for example the end: ***spoliers** (but if nothing happens in the film there's nothing to spoil) in the end Diane finds herself a victim of Hellfire club but what do they do to her?
Story starts with Diane (Connie Nielsen) who works for a French Corporation called VolfGroup and she has drugged a fellow associate and set up her kidnapping so that she can take over a multi million dollar account with a Japanese company called TokyoAnime.
Diane and her boss Herve (Charles Berling) go to Japan and try to close the deal to distribute the software for a 3-D website but another corporation from America called Demonlover are also very interested in the deal.
This film is directed by Olivier Assayas and while the premise is intriguing it's execution of the story is completely confusing and incoherent.
Very few scenes are filmed in focus and there are several shots with a hand held camera that give a very shaky and jittery effect and it's practically impossible to follow the action and figure out what actually happened.
Incomprehensible hodgepodge about a corporate spy (Nielsen at her most wooden) who infiltrates a cyberspace conglomerate that specializes in acquiring cyberporn websites with questionable tastes that lead ultimately to bondage, murder, double (and triple crosses) and madness (the latter is the audience's rage at sitting thru 2 hours of mastabatory junk) no thanks to 'filmmaker' Olivier Assayas (another reason to hate the French by the way) with plots going every which way for no apparent reason.
That said, this surreal, intentionally obtuse story of corporate intrigue centering around world domination of anime porn, makes less and less sense, climaxing with an 'ironic twist' you can see coming from several miles off, and leaving one with the feeling that the film is slightly less intelligent than one might have hoped.
She is negotiating a deal for a Japanese company that make anime porn and needs the deal to move into 3D.She steps over a rival, who's friend, Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry, Zodiac), stops playing her video games in the nude long enough to respond and ends up in the driver's seat.
Unfortunately, she doesn't last long in this game of corporate intrigue.Even a simple act of having sex becomes a power game as it turns from sex to rape to - well, I won't give that away.The ending ties it all up and show just what is driving all this mess, but unfortunately it just sort of pops into view and was not really set up properly.
The film is filled with wonderfully shady characters, hidden agendas, and weird plot twists as Neilsen's attempts at sabotaging a deal with an adult anime company lead to unexpected revelations about the nature of the internet entertainment trade.
Diane takes charge after an incident to Karen, but secretly she's working for another company who's interested in the deal involving the Japanese corporation TokyoAnime.
Diane thinks she's in complete control of the situation, but there's more going on behind the scenes than she really knows.The idea behind this French industrial techno-thriller is confounding, odd and grim, but its over-stylised direction and shady plot with disconnected characters can spoil much of the lasting impact.
For the first half of this movie, the plot is great and I was really enjoying the film.
What I ended up getting was rather tame and, worst of all, just plain boring at times.The plot, if one can call it that, revolves around several people who work for a few different companies.
On the whole, there is not a likable character to be found and the confusing plot didn't do them any favors at all.On a technical level I can sort of give this a pass because it was low-budget, so it wasn't too unexpected that most of the film was shot up-close and hand-held.
Diane, working with Demonlover and creating a joint with TokyoAnime, is in between teams, beginning the film by drugging the previous project lead manager on the plane trip from Tokyo and then following up by working with the rival company MangaTronics.
Its nicely shot and gives everything in this film a real dark moody tone clashing perfectly with the underground adult industry.Editing: 7/10 The focus remains on Diane the entire time but we do get a glimpse of what the other characters are up to.
The focus could have been better since things change halfway through the movie into a side plot of the Hell Fire Club website.Uniqueness: 8/10 For adult anime fans, yes it has that attraction to see what could possibly be going on behind the curtains of the industry.
Fans of 8MM will notice certain scenes bare a resemblance as Diane is new to all of the things going on around her and whether she wants to or not, she gets involved in many ways.Worth: 8/10 It is interesting enough to hunt down and see.
Fans of 8MM looking for more should see this as well.Overall Score (Not an average): 8.0 It isn't anything groundbreaking and there isn't anything new with twists and subplots that develop to other subplots but the movie would be good for something different as its French and takes place in many settings.
It can be fairly violent at times so some squeamish people might want to think twice.Reviewer's Insight: Though finding information on this film wasn't easy, the main plot focusing on Adult Anime got me interested.
In the end, I did not care about anyone or any of the ideas in the film, although the cast was great, particularly Connie Nielsen in a part that is practically unplayable..
The DNA molecule at the end of the movie fits this theme: stripped of the overlay of cultural illusions, it's all just survival of the fittest, each gene-set for itself.Finally, I want to comment that Nielsen's reaction to Berling in the bed scene makes sense, too.
[WARNING:  SPOILERS]Olivier Assayas' Demonlover begins as a handsome-looking corporate techno thriller that ranges between France, Japan, and the US and involves cutthroat executives from all three countries speaking all three languages who start out cutting deals and wind up cutting throats.
The Hellfire Club keeps coming up and figures prominently at the end  which is strange since Hervé has told the Japanese VolfGroup cannot be into anything illegal, and you wonder why a big conglomerate would allow such a marginal and questionable thing to invade their deal.Once Diane starts stalking Elaine, the action becomes violent, dreamlike, and confusing; perhaps it's all become a video game, but we're not told that.
Rather than keeping up with exactly which side of the game each major character appears to be playing on at a given moment in the story, viewers are almost better served just going along for the ride, letting the film take them where it will.' Yes, but the ride unfortunately goes nowhere.Demonlover makes skillful use of extreme close-ups and intense sound.
It has individual scenes that work on their own either as erotic vignettes; (Chloe Sevigny playing videogames in the nude , an Asian girl seducing a French man at a club after his lover leaves.) or plot actions (dosing a bottled water with Halcion) before the film ventures down the rabbit hole twenty odd minutes in.The general plot of Demonlover is a French conglomerate is looking to buy an adult anime company.
However I sat through the whole thing, and now know that interesting subject matter, a gorgeous cast, and a slick production, do not a good film make.
And if you're making a statement, why make it in a way that people will lose interest and get confused half way, and couldn't care less at the end.Connie Nielsen, or her character, is in focus of the movie.
You may not be familiar with things like corporate espionage and the porn industry -though if you're going to make a film about them, you certainly should- but being blatantly ignorant about "the Internets" is just unacceptable.
The narrative was continuous, and I had no trouble following the story line at all.---This is the spoiler part--- The real issue, for some people at least, behind corporate power, torture and sex, is control; they don't actually enjoy any of those activities per se.
I liked the first fifteen minutes, but then it got slow and I started checking the internet for deals on television sets, and then the movie started showing some interesting Japanese animation, so I started watching again.
The major problem with the film is that I don't really care what happens with the lead (Connie Nielsen) character.
Where most reviewers think this movie only comments on new media and globalisation, with the porn industry as a means to an end, I feel it also makes great comments on femininity and female sexuality and does that in an increasingly unapologetically.
"Demonlover" focuses on Diane de Monx (Connie Nielsen) who works for a French corporation vying over ownership of a new state-of-the-art 3-dimensional Manga pornography website; matters become complicated, however, when an American company enters the picture, headed by Elaine Si Gibril (Gina Gershon), and Diane's new assistant, Elise (Chloë Sevigny) begins exhibiting unusual behavior.