Demonlover

Before I go into any level of detail about this movie (which honestly won't be much), I should say upfront that I expected more from this since it's supposed to be part of this New French Extremity. 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. One is TokyoAnime, who specialize in animation and manga; the second is the titular Demonlover, a website where people can watch hentai; and the third is Mangatronics, Demonlover's primary competitor. There's also a torture site called Hellfire Club which may or may not be run on the sly by Demonlover. I suppose that last site could have made for a more graphic and explicit film if they'd chose to focus on that, but no, all you get is a dull slog about corporate spying among companies who just happen to deal with some rather sleazy stuff. However, there's only really one scene where you get to see exactly what this content is and a lot of it is blurred out. Moving on, the acting in this movie was passable although it's not what I would consider great by any means. Connie Nielsen and Gina Gershon, in her limited screen time, come off the best but mostly because their characters were the least annoying. Another major fault of this movie is writing. Aside from a lack of coherence in the general storyline, the characters are all varying degrees of unsympathetic and, at times, grating to the ears. Chloe Sevigny is probably the worst offender, as there are scenes where she'll lurch from calm and sedate to bitchy and screechy without much motivation or reason. On the whole, there is not a likeable 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 handheld. Most of the time, they gave you enough of a look at what was happening so that it wasn't visually disorienting. Still, there are a couple of scenes in which this filming style is detrimental. One was a catfight between Connie Nielsen and Gina Gershon's character in which it's often hard to tell who's hitting who and where they exactly are at any given moment. The other was a chase scene towards the end. Overall, given the subject matter, or at least what I thought the subject matter was going to be, I have to say this film was a disappointment. It was overly confusing, poorly written with unlikeable characters and, worst of all, rather boring. With such sleazy content involving animated porn and torture sites, they chose possibly one of the worst angles to approach it from and certainly one of the least compelling. It kind of improves in the last 30 minutes or so, but that doesn't excuse the nearly 90 minutes that came before it. If discussions about contracts, clauses and market share are your cup of tea, by all means check this out. For me, however, it was just a dud and waste of my time and money.

I walked out of the theater I caught demonlover in a couple of years ago sure I had witnessed a garballed movie ruined by a windbag need to be abstrusely "difficult." I'm not sure that assessment is wrong, per se, but since watching the movie, it's never quite left my mind, and I found myself purchasing a copy to watch it again. On this viewing, I'm far more kind. Its first hour is a top rate corporate thriller full of cunning acting and mesmerizing developments. Then, midway through, Diane (Connie Nielsen, in her only great performance to date) wakes up in a hotel room and the movie jumps through one of those Lynchian rabbit holes we call "Lynchian" to pretend we understand them (as if being deliberately unclear could be a calling card). The hallucination the movie becomes in the second half is a sort of half-cocked nightmare critique of soulless business practices, of the way the immorality of a corporation's practices and products can take over the essence of who its practiotioners are. Or so I think. Olivier Assayas lets the wind out of his movie for about an hour straight even to get that far, and it leads to narrative frustration, but I can't say watching this movie a second time that that frustration is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it takes me a place that I don't even go with David Lynch movies - Lynch is much more an artist of the hallucinatory. demonlover is, at heart, a movie of fairly innocent ideals told for maximum complication in a manner whose riskiness becoems its initial biggest weakness. Given another shot, you may find that riskiness returning you for another round, as I did.

This is a hardcore R-rated neo-noir technological thriller with corporate giants vying to monoplise the interactive 3D digital pornography market. It's a film that lacks morality as the limits of corporate espionage takes place among characters that have no limits. The limits of depravations are played out in extremely lurid fashion. The underground torture sites on the world-wide web reminded me of the HOSTEL films as a Corporate agent played by Connie Nielsen finds herself as an abducted star-player on a torture web-side THE HELLFIRE'S CLUB while a young boy in a surburban home steals his father's gold card and logs into this illegal web site as we are about to witness the online torture of Nielsen. It has all the elements and mise-en-scene one would expect in this genre. There's technological voyeruism, deprave sexuality, corporate exploitation and globilization, espionage amongst corporate giants and the backstabing exploitation of office politics with characters who decieve one other for corporate gain. Apparently Brian De Palma's new corporate thriller PASSION is set to be heavily influenced by DEMONLOVER.

Demonlover is a very modernist film which deserves to be alligned with the great dystopic novels of the previous century, "We", "the Iron Heel", and particularly "1984" with one proviso its primary impact as opposed to literary is videogenic.It tells the story of a corportate executive, appropriatly female, who will go to any lengths to succeed according to her on self-defined, narcisstic standards at odds with her objective appearances and in stark contrast to others expectations. Brash and domineering she uses a free floating cynicism to treacherously sell her corporate secrets to others for monetary gain thinking self-assuredly that her private intrique and machinations are curiously invioable, just as many criminals do. This is the first half of the film, in the second part of which so many critics don't like, all this ballsy swagger is shown to be an act of utter self-deluding fantasy; she has underestimated her antagonist and she instead of manipulating the system for her own gain she devolves into a most contemptible slave to it. A powerful morality tale for the times.

The quality of image of this dvd is basement level. Artifacts and grain where there is not supposed to be. Like the disc was burned from a screener. Disappointing as new 4k version of O. Assayas director's cut is only available outside North America or region free dvd player. Do not buy this version of the film.

Olivier Assayas Filme bewegen sich immer irgendwo zwischen dramatischen Geniestreichen und gepflegter Langeweile. "Irma Vep" wurde damals verdient gefeiert, "Carlos-Der Schakal" vor allem in der Langfassung ein komplexer Thriller ohnegleichen und "Die Wolken von Sils Maria" ist ein Film, der dramatisch erschüttert und doch die Sehnsucht nach Urlaub im Engadin weckt.Der ebenfalls von der Kritik gefeierte "Personal Shopper" hingegen ist für mich nur ein langatmiger Pseudokunstfilm und dass ein Regiesseur, der durchaus ein Talent für außergewöhnliches Kino hat, dann filmische Verbrechen wie "Boarding gate" in Umlauf bringt, kann nicht plausibel nachvollzogen werden.Doch wenn ich "Personal shopper" als Pseudokunstfilm kritisiere, müsste ich dies bei "Demonlover" ebenfalls. Nachdem Assayas mit "Irma Vep" und "Das Ende der Unschuld" von den Kritikern gefeiert wurde, hatten sie für "Demonlover" auch nur Spot übrig."Demonlover" hatte 2002 auch das Potential eines Skandals. Insgesamt vermischt Assayas die Kritik an Gewalt in TV und Video im Stil von David Cronenber's "Videodrome", modernisiert es ins Zeitalter von "eXistenZ" und schockiert offensichtlich mit der SM-Thematik die amerikanische Prüderie. Die R-Rated Fassung wurde um mehrere Minuten gekürzt und umgeschnitten, die ungeschnittene Fassung bekam ein Unrated. Der kalkulierte, kapitalbringende Skandal blieb allerdings aus, weil sich damals fast kein Mensch für diesen Film interessierte.Während Atom Egoyan mit "Family viewing" eine inhaltlich gelungene "Videodrome" Variation schuf, so bleibt dieser Film tatsächlich inhaltlich flach. Dennoch ist der Film in vielerlei Hinsicht brillant, die Besetzung mit Connie Nielson, Chloë Sevigny und Gina Gershon ein Augenschmaus. Die vonConnie Nielson dargestellte Protagonistin verhandelt mit einem japanischen Unternehmen um die Rechte für Animes voller Sex und Gewalt, stößt dann auf die SM-Seite Hellfire-Club, ist irgendwie fasziniert und verängstigt und ist irgendwann mittendrin. Doch irgendwann wird der Film bewusst unübersichtlich und wirr, spielt mit der Vermischung von Wirklichkeit und Traum. Inhaltlich bleibt die Geschichte tatsächlich leer, dennoch entsteht ein soghafter, oberflächlicher Thriller, der visuell sogar den Werken von Brian De Palma würdig ist und mit der Musik von Sonic Youth kongenial unterstütz wird. Insgesamt ist die Story noch weitaus verworrener als De Palma's trotz aller Brillanz stringent erzählten Thriller und eher ein Film für Fans von ebenfalls visuell ausufernden Werken wie "Neon Demon".Und der Zahn der Zeit, ja auch der hat bereits an "Demonlover" genagt, obwohl der Film erst 18 Jahre alt ist. Aber die gezeigte SM-Thematik wird heute höchstens noch erzkonservative Christen schockieren."Demonlover" kann jedoch Jedem empfohlen werden, der visuell und soundtechnisch geprägtes Kino mag. Style over Substance traf es selten so gut wie hier. Und würde man einen Film allein anhand des Stils beurteilen, so würde man hier nicht an der Höchstwertung vorbeikommen. Aber für eine inhaltlich schwache SM-Variation von "Videodrome" muss ich zumindest einen Stern abziehen.

Un beau thriller français porté par des acteurs fantastiques.

I don't know why but I love watching this movie, a lot.I'm not sure if it's the acting, story or how its filmed but I'm fascinated by it. The actors did a stellar job with their roles.

Demonlover - Der Tod kommt online ...  ist leider wieder einmal eine der überflüssigen Veröffentlichungen wo zwar dankenswerterweise die Originaltonspur enthalten ist, aber nicht eine Spur von Untertiteln. - Warum veröffentlicht man das so?Warum werde ich gezwungen, diesen Film in deutscher Synchronisation anzusehen? Leider spreche und verstehe ich nur ganz wenig Französisch, hätte aber doch gerne die Möglichkeit den Film in der Fassung zu sehen und zu hören, in der er ursprünglich vom Regisseur gedacht war.Ich finde das wirklich traurig.April 2013: Der Film hätte wirklich eine angemessene Veröffentlichung im deutschsprachigen Raum verdient! Einer der interessantesten Thriller im neuen Jahrtausend! Bedrückendes Ende.-Die DVD bietet kein besonders tolles Bild und die Synchronisation wirkt zwischendurch immer wieder wie ein Fremdkörper. Demonlover - Der Tod kommt online ...