Review of Demonlover (2002) by Peter P — 13 Oct 2009

This underrated film directed by Olivier Assayas explores the seamy intersection of the corporate economy with the underground economy. Diane (Connie Nielsen), is a corporate spy, who, in the first scene, drugs her superior and then has her abducted by hired thugs in order to take over her project, which involves buying majority shares in a Japanese animation studio that specializes in erotica.

She advances to the top of a venture capital firm, while staying on the secret payroll of a company fighting to keep its share of the growing market in internet porn. But the ambitious Diane runs afoul of its rival, which happens to have a sideline in some rough ventures catering to the jaded and the depraved.

Nielsen goes from icy to vulnerable as her character becomes trapped in a series of increasingly nightmarish situations. The film traces a harrowing arc from gleaming corporate offices and elegant French hotels to squalid dungeons charged with supplying the few remaining pleasures capable of arousing the desensitized.

The clinical gaze of Assayas's camera manages to keep the lurid nature of the material from overwhelming the film. Its cool, detached approach is well-suited to the actors, who play essentially unsympathetic characters, ruthless in their desire for money.

Not easy to watch, but the film does confront the disturbing reality that the borderless world of global capitalism generates and expands its own infernal regions.