First off, the movie's plot DOES make sense. I'll address that below, after the Spoiler Alert.
It's a very interesting movie, thematically, visually, aurally. I summarize the theme as `Who's the top now.' (By `top' I refer to the sadomasochistic term for the dominant partner.) It sees corporate life, in particular, and modern Western culture, in general, as a soulless contest for dominance among individuals, who have no meaningful connection to other people beyond the dominance-submission relationship. Life has been reduced to a video game, in which winning is everything; consequently, life has been reduced to something as "spiritually" and socially empty as a video game. Demonlover is a serious condemnation of the culture we shaped and which in turn shapes us.
Much of the camerawork is relentlessly close-up. There are even relatively long tracking shots where you never have enough distance to see in any one frame much more than a hand, or a skirt, or a car door. It makes the movie exciting to watch, even when all you're watching are yuppies negotiating or driving from one place to another. It also helps present the theme of characters with no moral distance from what they're doing, with no `perspective.' It makes everything Go-Go-Go, just like in a video game, where something is always coming at you, or like in the `go-go' make-a-buck corporate world.
Nobody has faulted the acting. Nielsen is great, a desirable top in the first half, if ever I've seen one! And I've never seen Berling before, but I'd be happy just watching that pleasant slimeball eat and talk for thirty minutes straight. (If you cast HIM in My Dinner with Andre it would instantly have a voluptuously seamy quality!)
As for the pornography scenes, Assayas shows almost nothing. It's an especially NON-explicit movie. Not only is it neither erotic nor titillating, it actually shows less graphic violence, sex, and nudity than the average R-rated movie these days. It is not at all `exploitative.' Critics are taking offense at the meaning and implications of what is shown, not at the graphic content.
SPOILERS BELOW
I've seen reviews that think the plot falls apart after `the first half,' which means after Gershon and Nielsen fight. What happens is that both women black out, and then Sevigny and cohorts clean up the mess, perhaps dispose of Gershon (it doesn't matter), and `rescue' Nielsen. Then she finds out that Sevigny ALSO is an undercover agent. Sevigny in the meantime, while Nielsen is knocked out, has managed to climb the corporate ladder, so that their roles are reversed both at Volf AND as spies for Magnatronics. (Maybe Sevigny worked for Magnatronics from the start, or maybe she was co-opted later; it doesn't matter.) As someone playing her role in a dominance-submission relationship, she is then stuck as a submissive, and acts it. It's not out of character. She is just no longer the top she thought she was.
The plot doesn't go haywire; it's just that Assayas has fun with us, as we find out that Karen is familiar with the ways of Magnatronics and then, finally, that Sevigny actually works for Berling. In other words, EVERYONE we've met at Volf, except Volf himself, is actually an undercover agent. The company is a shell full of people who are not on its side, who are only out for themselves and are, through greed and deceitfulness, actually in the employ of their employer's enemy. Just as the society is shown to have no values outside of individual success and dominance, so it is shown, to an absurd extreme, within the analogue of the Volf Corporation. 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. While who is the dominant is undecided, she seems to be into the sex, undoing his belt, etc. But then he asserts his dominance, and the scene turns into a rape. They couldn't really have balanced consensual sex, since it's about winning, not about love. Hence he takes the dominant role, forcing intercourse (even though she clearly was heading there anyway!). Next it's her turn to `win,' his having just trumped her with male physical strength: she uses the equalizer.
It's a very interesting movie, thematically, visually, aurally. I summarize the theme as `Who's the top now.' (By `top' I refer to the sadomasochistic term for the dominant partner.) It sees corporate life, in particular, and modern Western culture, in general, as a soulless contest for dominance among individuals, who have no meaningful connection to other people beyond the dominance-submission relationship. Life has been reduced to a video game, in which winning is everything; consequently, life has been reduced to something as "spiritually" and socially empty as a video game. Demonlover is a serious condemnation of the culture we shaped and which in turn shapes us.
Much of the camerawork is relentlessly close-up. There are even relatively long tracking shots where you never have enough distance to see in any one frame much more than a hand, or a skirt, or a car door. It makes the movie exciting to watch, even when all you're watching are yuppies negotiating or driving from one place to another. It also helps present the theme of characters with no moral distance from what they're doing, with no `perspective.' It makes everything Go-Go-Go, just like in a video game, where something is always coming at you, or like in the `go-go' make-a-buck corporate world.
Nobody has faulted the acting. Nielsen is great, a desirable top in the first half, if ever I've seen one! And I've never seen Berling before, but I'd be happy just watching that pleasant slimeball eat and talk for thirty minutes straight. (If you cast HIM in My Dinner with Andre it would instantly have a voluptuously seamy quality!)
As for the pornography scenes, Assayas shows almost nothing. It's an especially NON-explicit movie. Not only is it neither erotic nor titillating, it actually shows less graphic violence, sex, and nudity than the average R-rated movie these days. It is not at all `exploitative.' Critics are taking offense at the meaning and implications of what is shown, not at the graphic content.
SPOILERS BELOW
I've seen reviews that think the plot falls apart after `the first half,' which means after Gershon and Nielsen fight. What happens is that both women black out, and then Sevigny and cohorts clean up the mess, perhaps dispose of Gershon (it doesn't matter), and `rescue' Nielsen. Then she finds out that Sevigny ALSO is an undercover agent. Sevigny in the meantime, while Nielsen is knocked out, has managed to climb the corporate ladder, so that their roles are reversed both at Volf AND as spies for Magnatronics. (Maybe Sevigny worked for Magnatronics from the start, or maybe she was co-opted later; it doesn't matter.) As someone playing her role in a dominance-submission relationship, she is then stuck as a submissive, and acts it. It's not out of character. She is just no longer the top she thought she was.
The plot doesn't go haywire; it's just that Assayas has fun with us, as we find out that Karen is familiar with the ways of Magnatronics and then, finally, that Sevigny actually works for Berling. In other words, EVERYONE we've met at Volf, except Volf himself, is actually an undercover agent. The company is a shell full of people who are not on its side, who are only out for themselves and are, through greed and deceitfulness, actually in the employ of their employer's enemy. Just as the society is shown to have no values outside of individual success and dominance, so it is shown, to an absurd extreme, within the analogue of the Volf Corporation. 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. While who is the dominant is undecided, she seems to be into the sex, undoing his belt, etc. But then he asserts his dominance, and the scene turns into a rape. They couldn't really have balanced consensual sex, since it's about winning, not about love. Hence he takes the dominant role, forcing intercourse (even though she clearly was heading there anyway!). Next it's her turn to `win,' his having just trumped her with male physical strength: she uses the equalizer.