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"She" is a thriller drama directed by the famous Dutch director Paul Verhoeven and starring Isabelle Huppert. It premiered in France in 2016. Paul Verhoeven did not major in filmmaking at university, but a doctorate in mathematics and physics, until he joined the Royal Netherlands Navy's film service company and began to experiment with short film creation, which was also his interest.
After graduating, Paul Verhoeven filmed in the Netherlands and other criticized films such as "Turkish Carnival", he thought he could no longer continue to shoot, because the government might refuse to invest in his films, so he came to the United States to develop. In the United States, Paul Verhoeven has shot popular works such as "Robocop", "Instinct" and "Starship Troopers", and his fame in the film industry is also getting higher and higher.
"She" is a film by Verhoeven and France. The film is adapted from the novel "Oh..." by Philippe Dion. The film tells the story of Michelle, the female boss of a game company, who is trying to rebuild her life after being sexually assaulted by a man in black. The story of Huppert's exquisite and delicate performance has created a female image with tough character, strong aura and full of charm, so many critics think this is a wonderful female movie.
Michelle is surrounded by many men who are convinced by her charm, including her neighbor Patrick, her ex-husband Richard, and her best friend's husband Robert, but in front of these people, Michelle never shows weakness, she can accept them With the help of her, she can also hand over her body to them, but she will never be in a weak position. She is more like a queen, sitting on her throne and looking down at these men who bow down to her.
Going back to the beginning of the film, the audience is not yet mentally prepared. Michelle is being sexually assaulted by a mysterious black man, but the camera does not show more details at close range, but in a slightly far position, through the help of a cat. The point of view, watching all this quietly, the interesting thing is that the music here is not that kind of tense and full of crisis, but a solemn and comedy like a certain event, like the sexual assault in front of you. Crime is not a big deal.
This abrupt, peculiar opening conveys the message that this movie is not a very realistic movie, it has a flamboyant style that provides formal drama to the plot.
After being sexually assaulted, Michelle did not choose to call the police, nor did she tell her friends about it. She acted calmly, without being overly sad, and went on with her life as if nothing had happened. As we said above, Michelle was the owner of a game company, and they were developing a new game at the time. Not long after the sexual assault incident, the entire company received an email that Michelle's face was placed on a character in the game, and that character was being sexually assaulted by a monster with tentacles
She immediately suspected that the person who arranged the prank might be in her own company. So she found an employee in the company who was good at computers and paid him to find the murderer. Later, while the employee was out, Mihir checked his computer and found that there were many nasty images and videos stored on the computer. The employee was embarrassed to explain that the video was not intended to be released, but was sent to the entire company by other groups of people.
Michelle made him take off his pants, and she observed that this person was not the man in black who sexually assaulted her. Although this prank damaged Michelle's reputation, it did not make her lose her head. Her psychological quality is much higher than ordinary people, and she still controls everything in the company as a company boss. .
Another characteristic of Michelle is that she does not hide her thoughts and desires at all. For example, she can discuss topics that are difficult for ordinary people to talk about in public places. She also has a strong desire for her neighbor Patrick. One day, she is at home. Masturbating while watching Patrick with binoculars, she later offered to invite Patrick and her wife to a Christmas party.
This party is a very exciting part of the film, firstly because all the protagonists in the film are present, and secondly, it shows the contradiction between Michelle and these relatives and friends. It can also be said that Michelle is the core figure of this party.
We can briefly sort out the relationship between Michelle and these people.
Anna is Michelle's good best friend, and the relationship between the two is very good and very close. Anna's husband is Robert, and Michelle maintains an improper relationship with him behind Anna's back. Every time Anna is not at home, Robert will invite Michelle to the hotel.
Michelle and ex-husband Richard have a son named Vincent, who is also a weak male in the film, and has a grumpy wife, Josie. Both are white, but the child born has dark black skin, and Michelle repeatedly reminded Vincent that this is not his child. But Vincent doesn't seem to care about all this, he just thinks about how to make money to support his family and how to be a qualified father. Vincent's performance is like a harlequin in a comedy, which may be the reason why the film has made the audience feel funny many times during the screening.
Paul Verhoeven said that Vincent's role is mainly to foil the strong and independent character of her mother Michelle. But this slightly exaggerated approach does play down the film's seriousness and tension, which isn't often found in thrillers. Michelle's ex-husband, Richard, had beaten Michelle, which was the reason for their divorce. Richard felt guilty, but Michelle's firmness prevented him from wanting to return to the old good.
He's not a particularly famous writer, he especially likes women who like to read his books, Helene is one of them, but it's weird that Michelle cares so much about Helene's appearance, she investigates her, even And let others judge her good-looking or not. This is the more complicated side of Michelle's mind. Although he is very disappointed with his ex-husband, he is also very concerned about the women around him.
Michelle's mother, Erin, is someone she doesn't like very much. She always forces Michelle to go to prison to see her father, LeBron, who committed vicious serial killings thirty years ago. A background of Michelle's experience. This experience made her feel embarrassed and attracted a lot of discrimination. This is why she couldn't trust the police and the media, and instead forced herself to gradually become stronger and rebuild her life on her own. one reason.
She didn't want to talk about the past, so she didn't like Erin very much. Erin found a very young lover. When she announced at the party that the two were about to get married, Michelle gave a mocking smile. This made her mother feel dissatisfied, and in a fit of rage, she fell ill and was sent to the hospital.
The conflict between mother and daughter is a frequent theme in European art films. The more famous work is Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata". Bergman tells the complex emotional entanglement between mother and daughter with a very superb technique. , Although the film "Her" does not fully focus on the discussion of the mother-daughter relationship, it also presents a special mother-daughter emotional relationship very delicately. In fact, LeBron's crime caused a lot of damage to both of them. Hit, Irene still believes in the marital relationship between the two, but Michelle doesn't want to accept it at all, she just wants to escape the pressure this family brings to her.
Neighbor Patrick put his hand on Michelle's hand at the dining table, which surprised Michelle. She must know that she has some good feelings for this neighbor in her heart, so she became bold and took off her shoes. , put his foot in Patrick's lower body part to tease him.
Here Huppert has contributed very good acting skills. While maintaining the atmosphere and order of the whole party, she flirted with Patrick with ambiguous and seductive eyes. It can be seen that she is a female character who can control everything in her own hands. , which is not common in other films.
Robert noticed the abnormal situation between the two and he privately complained that Michelle ignored him, which is also interesting because usually the complaining party in the film is a woman, and this time it became a man, But Michelle didn't want to say much.
There is still a scene for the latter two. After they finished their work again, Michelle stood behind him. A mirror of her ex-husband magnified Michelle's face. We can see that although Robert is much taller than her, the whole composition can be seen. Michelle was not at a disadvantage when she came out, she looked up, she opened her mouth in the mirror and said something that annoyed Vincent, she decided not to sleep with him anymore, very decisive and very affim. There are many examples of Michelle's strong character in the film, which is also the original intention of director Paul Verhoeven, because she hopes that Huppert can play such a role, not admit defeat, not surrender, and at the same time never stop exuding charm,
We come back to this party again, Paul Verhoeven said in an interview that when filming "Her", he was influenced by many film history cards, including Federico Fellini's "Eight and a half" and "Her". Dolce Vita, Hitchcock's Murder on the Phone and Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, which he claims to have enjoyed as a child.
Scenes like this one where many people get together to eat, drink and have fun are also Fellini and Renoir's forte. In this film, Paul Verhoeven gave full play to his character mobilization ability, using dialogue, camera editing and some subtle actions to show the contradiction between characters just right. What's more important is to achieve the effect from "comedy to sentimental", which is also the experience he learned from "Rules of the Game".
That is to say, there is a strong atmosphere of hatred, disgust, seduction, and crime hidden in a seemingly joyful atmosphere, which is why the style of the film looks very messy, and it is difficult to classify it into a single one. type.
After the party, the relationship between Patrick and Michelle became closer. One windy night, Patrick came to help Michelle's house. At the same time, just when Patrick was about to put his hand into Michelle's underwear, and Michelle was enjoying it very much at the same time, Patrick suddenly ran away, leaving Michelle alone at a loss.
One night not long after, the man in black broke into Michelle's house again. Just before he succeeded, Michele pierced the hand of the man in black with scissors, and Michelle took advantage of his pain and wailed. When he opened his mask, this person was Patrick. The exposed Patrick did not behave as fiercely as he had before, but ran away under the threat of Michelle.
It stands to reason that Michelle, who knew the truth, could choose to call the police and arrest Patrick directly, but she did not do so. She accepted all this with a calm attitude and continued to live again.
At this point, the audience may find Michelle's behavior incomprehensible. Does she not care about being sexually assaulted? Doesn't she hate Patrick? That's what Paul Verhoeven wanted. He wanted Michelle to be a different person. She wanted to pursue something different. Some people may think that the reason why Michelle chooses to hold back is that she wants to set a trap and finally find a chance to take revenge, but the truth is not that simple
We look down. After Michelle knew that Patrick was the murderer, there was an accident. She had a car accident in the wild. She didn't find anyone else, but Patrick to save herself out
That same day, Patrick assaulted her again. But Michelle also uncovers a secret about Patrick, who is sexually dysfunctional. This is also the reason why he had to sexually assault in the face of the man in black, otherwise he would not have that ability at all. Michelle was hurt again, but she seemed indifferent and let Patrick go until the end, when she lured Patrick into the house while the game launch party was being held. As expected, Patrick put on the man in black outfit again, when he was about to do something wrong. Vincent came back and wounded Patrick. Michelle was thus spared harm. This ending looks very much like a female victim successfully revenge, but the film handles it vaguely, such as it does not give details of Michelle and Vincent's revenge plan
When Vincent finally appeared, he used a first-person point of view, as if he had deliberately concealed the information of the rescuer. So in the end, when the audience finds out that this person is Vincent, it may be a little surprised. Paul Verhoeven said in an interview that Michelle didn't want revenge, but her son had a misunderstanding and felt he should kill Patrick. However, as far as this finished film is concerned, it really did not express the director's idea clearly, so it does seem to be a story of revenge.
But the incident Michelle experienced in the film is not just about being sexually assaulted, but also about her and her father, mother, son, daughter-in-law, girlfriend, ex-husband and mistress. The roles are also important, and revenge on the killer is just one of those things. But as a movie, sexual assault is a more dramatic and interesting topic. Placing it at the beginning of the film quickly transports the viewer into Michelle's world. Moreover, this is also an advantage of his choice to cooperate with France, because in the United States, in Hollywood, it is impossible for the film to have such a large-scale scene
The film "Her" combines the open narrative and diverse style of European art films with the fusion of various types of elements in Hollywood genre films. This is in line with Verhoeven's choice of screenwriter David Burke. It is closely related that a Hollywood screenwriter who is talented in his eyes is very good at making horror-style movies. Of course, Verhoeven's directing experience in Hollywood will also affect the final style of this movie.
I think that's also why the ending looks very much like Michelle's vengeance, which is very much in the Hollywood tradition of happy endings where, in the end, the problem is solved and the culprit is brought to justice. Like last year's Oscar-nominated film "The Girl with a Bright Future," it ended up being a revenge thriller, but a lot of the issues that deserved further discussion were replaced by the thrill of revenge, leaving the impression on the audience. Michelle is indeed a very strong, very brave woman.
Paul Verhoeven doesn't think the film needs to be over-interpreted, such as the influence of Michelle's father on her, her relationship with her mother, and Patrick's perverted behavior, all seem to be able to use the method of psychoanalysis. Explain, but it doesn't make much sense, because the story is fictional, and it is difficult to guarantee that the interpretation of the plot using psychoanalytic methods is reasonable and scientific, and even if it is over-interpreted, new conclusions will not be drawn.
These episodes are mainly to make Michelle's image more complete and make the character believable. The point of the film is to create a character who has experienced ups and downs, but is extremely strong and emotionally rich. It is also the reason why Huppert wants to take over this role. This is a very challenging thing, and only a skilled actor like Huppert dares to challenge this complex role.
The film doesn't have to tell everything clearly, and it doesn't have to give more explanations about the motives of the characters, it needs a little imagination, it needs some exaggeration skills, which is why Paul Verhoeven thinks the film can be made. , if everything was explained clearly, in his words, there would not be this movie.
Since the film has created a very special female character, and she does not look down on any man, can such a film be considered a female film? This question is actually a bit complicated, because the definition of women's movies is very vague, it can be said that everyone has her own opinion about women's movies, but based on my personal experience of watching movies, I don't think it is a women's movie.
First of all, its directors and screenwriters are all men. Generally speaking, only female directors understand women themselves. Women in the eyes of male creators often lack the female awareness that is critical to female films. Feminine consciousness contains women's gender concepts that are different from men's, and contains women's own life experience.
Although the film does show the opposition between Michelle and the surrounding men, it does not go deep into the category of female consciousness, or it is not so much the opposition between men and women as it is the opposition between the strong and the weak. Sheer is very powerful, trying to highlight her uniqueness, not to be antagonistic to men.
After all, there are also many disadvantaged women in the film, such as Patrick's wife Rebecca, who is an unhappy married woman because she can't meet Patrick's sexual needs. Michelle's best friend Anna, her husband cheated on Michelle, she became particularly broken down, these two roles set off Michelle's strength.
However, Michelle's strength should be said to be just a setting in the script. She is the boss of the company, rich and powerful. She is qualified to fight with the men around her, and can easily gain the upper hand. However, it is precisely because of her setting as a strong woman that she has become the object of desire of relatively weak men. I am not sure whether this contrast between weak men and strong women has strengthened the possibility of Michelle becoming the object of male desire. , is more likely to cater to a male audience, this also needs further discussion, but in my personal opinion, I do doubt that such a possibility exists. Under the male-dominated narrative logic, Michelle may still be just an object of desire, but she is full of edges and corners, a more dangerous but also more attractive prey.
Also, let's take a look at the male character in the film, Michelle's father. Although he has very little role in this film, he has a great influence on Michelle. She has been reluctant to see him before, but her father After his death, she still went to the cemetery to visit him. Her ex-husband Richard, although the two divorced, Richard still surrounds her in the image of a big man, and wants to protect her in his own way. The appearance of Helen made Michelle feel a little panic. She was very concerned about whether this woman was better than herself and whether she really loved Richard. What kind of psychology was this? envy? envious? Or are you worried that someone else will take your ex? I think this implies that no matter how powerful a woman is, a male creator cannot do without a man, because here, we see another side of Michelle, she may not be able to completely abandon the man who once hurt her.
In the end there is his son Vincent, and we don't care whether she, the always very weak and incompetent son finally rescued himself, we will find that he has always insisted that he is the father of the newborn, although he is obviously not his own, and he eventually It did get Michelle's approval to host the game launch party. His wife, Josie, was a difficult character to get along with. The two often quarreled, but in the end she chose to live with Vincent with her child, and Vincent finally transformed from an immature child to a capable A good father and a good husband under family pressure, if we say this is a female film, it is obviously unreasonable that a non-major male character should have such a very important change, there must be male creators themselves here A logic that men are not all weak or ironic, they can still use their own strength and rules to fight against women, so my opinion is, "She" is not a women's film, on the contrary, it It may be a patriarchal film in disguise that is closer to patriarchy.
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