A teenage girl, Leopard Girl, played by Natalie Kinski, falls in love with Oliver (John Heard), the zookeeper. For Oliver, in the eyes of director Paul Schrader, Leopard is his Beatrice. Beatrice is a character created by Dante in "The Divine Comedy", in which the poet's love for Beatrice is a kind of spiritual love, equivalent to Platonic love. Dante has a few moving descriptions of the poet's first encounter with Beatrice: "At this time, the spirit of life, hidden in the deepest part of life, began to vibrate violently, and even the very weak pulse was Feel the shock." Oliver has been searching for his Beatrice, and the appearance of Leopard Sister makes his fantasy a reality. Oliver loves animals more than humans. Leopard girl can be said to be half human and half animal. Later, when Oliver found out that she was a leopard, he did not kill it. After making love with her, she turned into a leopard and kept "her" in a cage like other real animals. Oliver still loves Leopard Girl, Leopard Girl is still his Beatrice, and the animal's shape just fits his hobby. It can be seen in the film that Leopard Girl is enclosed in a cage. After Oliver and his female colleague are absent-mindedly intimate, he comes to Leopard Girl's cage and feeds her affectionately. Leopard responds to his caress. . Oliver got love, but only mentally. Leopard girl is a symbol of the conflict between love and desire. She has love, but she has to be permanently transformed into a beast. If the leopard is executed, it may make the film a purer monster or horror film. And the film's ending is still tragic, with an obvious Platonic romantic flavor.
"Leopard Girl" contained all the elements of a hit commercial: monsters, horror, sex, fantasy, mythology, etc., and it didn't turn out to be as successful as expected. Paul Schrader, who is also a film critic, pointed out one of the reasons: the audience who likes horror movies think this is not like a horror movie; the audience who prefer delicate works think it is just a horror movie. The treatment of sex in the film is not handled with commercialized images. Natasha's naked beauty has a kind of coldness, and the process from passion to desire is chilling.
Natalie Kinski gave a daring performance, and she went naked, unlike Juliette Binoche in "The Unbearable Lightness of Life" and "Lover on Fire," which were directly related to sex, Leopard girl is the embodiment of love and desire, but when Natasha is naked, the picture has little to do with sex. Natasha is more like Emmanuelle Bea's performance in Jacques Rivette's "The Uninhibited Beauty". Emmanuelle is a model in the film for the painter to appreciate while the audience outside the film appreciates her A beautiful body is like admiring a work of art.
However, admiring actors and characters like Natasha can lead to infatuation, and the director is no exception. According to Paul himself, after the film began to shoot, he fell in love with Natasha, which caused the film to have some influences that he was not aware of at the time. The overall condition of "The Leopard Girl" is naturally not the superior level of Paul Schrader, but it is also not a bad failure due to his severe out-of-control. Music is an unbalanced part of the film. It is too full. Compared with the plain and calm narration, the soundtrack has grabbed the audio-visual attraction point at many moments, and it is a bit suspicious.
In terms of viewing, there are many explosions, not to mention Natasha's bold performance, in addition to the mysterious electronic music, the theme song sung by David Bowie, Malcolm McDowell Err (Malcolm McDowell, works include Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", Dindu Ballas' "Roman Empire Erotic History", etc.) badass performances and so on. Movies with monsters naturally have spectacles, so what are the selling points to worry about? However, the new version of "Wolfman" in 2010 was extremely dull. For a commercial film to be able to shoot this, it can be called an alternative. "Leopard Girl" did not deliberately use those commercial elements, nor did it pretend to be boring.
"Wolfman" is a remake of the 1940s work of the same name, as is "Leopard Girl". For the 1942 "Leopard Girl", Paul Schrader thought it was not a very good movie, and his "platinum partner" Scorsese in his documentary "A Personal Journey" (A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, a somewhat exaggerated tout of the old Leopard Girl: "In a way, it's as important as Citizen Kane." As screenwriter, Paul Schraer De and Scorsese collaborated on many famous works: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, etc. The legend they created together is more widely circulated than "Leopard Girl", which is full of gimmick elements, but is buried in history. From this point of view, the judgment of time is fair after all, "Leopard Girl" itself is too mediocre, not as sexy as the soundtrack and Natasha Kinski. For movie fans, one day, because of the pursuit of Paul Schrader or Natasha Kinski, after watching "The Leopard Girl" from beginning to end, you will still be a little excited and feel that the search journey is worthwhile. The frozen old images are both incomplete and beautiful.
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