Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is back with his latest full length feature film, Elle, after taking a ten's years break in full length film since Blackbook (Zwartboek, 2006). Once again, he uses feminism as the lead of the story, which showcases a different side of female dominance. Based on the novel Oh! written by Philippe Djian and features acclaimed actress Isabelle Huppert as Michele LeBlanc, the leading protagonist, the combination is definitely worth looking forward to.
When Michele, the CEO of a computer game development company, was sexually violated by a mysterious intruder who breaks into her home, she began a hunt on the identity of the intruder. Starting from her worker where she recently had a conflict with, she began every single step in self-protection. At the same time, she experiences family and relationship issues, a crush on her neighbor and sexual deprivation after remaining single for years. What she may not realize is that the intruder might be someone she is closed with, and it can be the person whom she trusts.
Generally, Elle can be divided into three components: the actions taken to prevent herself from further violation; repairing her estranged relationships with her family members and fulfilling her sexual deprivation from the people around her. In the three components, female dominance takes the leading role to control the situations that falls within the three components. For instance: changing the locks at home, getting an axe and pepper spray, learning how to fire a gun through the assistance of her co-worker displays a sense of security and protection needed for herself. Having a say in how her family members ought to behave, according to her standards, is another showcase on how female dominance applies on her personal relationships with her family members. This can be seen as how she wants her son to meet her criteria before she sponsors a new home for her son and pregnant girlfriend; telling her mother the types of boyfriend she should look for herself while paying for her living expenses. In terms of fulfilling her sexual needs, female dominance will only come in at the later part. Here, we can see how she gave in to her co-worker's request for sexual acts in the workplace, secretly admiring at her neighbor while pleasuring herself till how she fail to resist and constantly fantasize of being rape by the intruder.
While the plot focuses on how Huppert's Michele hunts down the intruder and engage in a cat and mouse game with the suspect, the development of the story has somehow distorted and went wayward from the initial plot. At an duration of 130 minutes, the story focuses mainly on how Michele's dominance and sometimes perverted personality came about. While this has provided us with a good understanding on Michele's background which leads to her personality, audience may find it rather redundant, and sometimes, bored, in terms of how this leads to the development of the whole story. Her personality was seen to only be useful at the last 40 minutes of the film, which opens a surprise to everyone. Isabelle Huppert has delivered an excellent performance in Elle, where she was seen as the next female role which uses female dominance as the center stage after Sharon Stone in Verhoeven's classic, Basic Instinct (1992). Audience can find some shadow of Stone's Catherine Tramell in Huppert's Michele, such as how she seduces her neighbor for sexual favors. While Tramell dominates and manipulate the people around her through intelligence and sex, Michele uses her personality to dominate the people around her.
To sum up, Elle marks the return of Paul Verhoeven to the big screen with a full-length feature thriller surrounding feminism and dominance. While this can be seen as one of the best foreign feature film of 2016, it is not exactly the best film from Verhoeven. Elle can be seen as a successor to Basic Instinct, but it has some way to go in order to achieve the cult-classic status earned by Basic Instinct.
When Michele, the CEO of a computer game development company, was sexually violated by a mysterious intruder who breaks into her home, she began a hunt on the identity of the intruder. Starting from her worker where she recently had a conflict with, she began every single step in self-protection. At the same time, she experiences family and relationship issues, a crush on her neighbor and sexual deprivation after remaining single for years. What she may not realize is that the intruder might be someone she is closed with, and it can be the person whom she trusts.
Generally, Elle can be divided into three components: the actions taken to prevent herself from further violation; repairing her estranged relationships with her family members and fulfilling her sexual deprivation from the people around her. In the three components, female dominance takes the leading role to control the situations that falls within the three components. For instance: changing the locks at home, getting an axe and pepper spray, learning how to fire a gun through the assistance of her co-worker displays a sense of security and protection needed for herself. Having a say in how her family members ought to behave, according to her standards, is another showcase on how female dominance applies on her personal relationships with her family members. This can be seen as how she wants her son to meet her criteria before she sponsors a new home for her son and pregnant girlfriend; telling her mother the types of boyfriend she should look for herself while paying for her living expenses. In terms of fulfilling her sexual needs, female dominance will only come in at the later part. Here, we can see how she gave in to her co-worker's request for sexual acts in the workplace, secretly admiring at her neighbor while pleasuring herself till how she fail to resist and constantly fantasize of being rape by the intruder.
While the plot focuses on how Huppert's Michele hunts down the intruder and engage in a cat and mouse game with the suspect, the development of the story has somehow distorted and went wayward from the initial plot. At an duration of 130 minutes, the story focuses mainly on how Michele's dominance and sometimes perverted personality came about. While this has provided us with a good understanding on Michele's background which leads to her personality, audience may find it rather redundant, and sometimes, bored, in terms of how this leads to the development of the whole story. Her personality was seen to only be useful at the last 40 minutes of the film, which opens a surprise to everyone. Isabelle Huppert has delivered an excellent performance in Elle, where she was seen as the next female role which uses female dominance as the center stage after Sharon Stone in Verhoeven's classic, Basic Instinct (1992). Audience can find some shadow of Stone's Catherine Tramell in Huppert's Michele, such as how she seduces her neighbor for sexual favors. While Tramell dominates and manipulate the people around her through intelligence and sex, Michele uses her personality to dominate the people around her.
To sum up, Elle marks the return of Paul Verhoeven to the big screen with a full-length feature thriller surrounding feminism and dominance. While this can be seen as one of the best foreign feature film of 2016, it is not exactly the best film from Verhoeven. Elle can be seen as a successor to Basic Instinct, but it has some way to go in order to achieve the cult-classic status earned by Basic Instinct.