SUMMER PREVIEWS, MELBOURNE FEST, & A SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON WITH 'LOVE CRIME'
Earlier this week, it was announced that Brian De Palma's Passion will be included in this year's Melbourne International Film Festival. A day or so later, the fest's web site posted its description of the film:Sex, sin, terror and torment, De Palma style.
With bountiful betrayal and abundant bitchiness, Passion is a classic Brian De Palma (Redacted, MIFF 2008) psychological thriller – complete with the requisite battling beauties. Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams play against type as corporate-climbing colleagues locked in a professional power struggle that soon takes a turn toward the personal.
Steeped in the filmmaker’s own back catalogue, and shaped by his trademark flourishes, the pulpy, neo-noir remaking of Alain Corneau’s final film, Love Crime, is as visually arresting as it is emotionally lurid. As obsessions spiral into a seductive symphony, the hallucinations and humiliations are amplified with every dramatic interaction between the fated femme fatales, accompanied by a bawdy sense of humour.
TWO SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEWS
On Thursday, Miami New Times posted a 2013 Summer Movie Guide written by Simon Abrams. While the article still has Passion listed incorrectly for June 7 (the film will not be released in theaters until August 30), Abrams loves the film, so it's always fun to read what he has to say about it:
"Brian De Palma returns with this visually delirious, Hitchcock-inspired pulp remake of 2010 French thriller Love Crime. Rachel McAdams and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace co-star as social-climbing ad women whose rivalry leads to a hilariously convoluted murder plot. The film is full of everything De Palma's fans and detractors have come to associate him with, building to a fantastic orchestra hall set piece, complete with split-screen photography. It's good, mean fun."
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Examiner's Jeffrey M. Anderson has put together a selected list of summer films that "may be the cream of the crop." He includes Passion (with the correct theatrical date of August 30), and makes it the third film mentioned in the article. "De Palma returns to the comfortable (or uncomfortable) territory that has made so many of his films classics and guilty pleasures," writes Anderson. "McAdams plays a conniving boss who steals an idea from her new protege (Rapace), leading to an ever-escalating battle of wills. The movie promises great obsession and voyeurism in De Palma’s high style."
FRENCH BLOGGER: 'PASSION' IN THREE WORDS: MUSIQUE - ZOOM - FEMMES
On May 23rd, Timekeeper at the blog Visionarium posted "Passion in three words: Musique - zoom - femmes." He continued, "And I wanted to stop there. Enough, it satisfies me, it sums up what I like most about Passion, but I could say exactly the same thing about Femme Fatale and almost the same thing about Body Double or Snake Eyes." Yesterday, Timekeeper posted a comparison between Love Crime and Passion, calling the former "Passion without passion." The post is illustrated with several stills comparing shots from each film. Timekeeper criticizes Love Crime for being a "French film" in the sense that it has very little camera movement, as though it was filmed in the manner of writing a novel. "As if the image does not count," writes Timekeeper. "As if story alone is sufficient to itself."