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#474 - Elle
Paul Verhoeven, 2016



A woman who is already dealing with an extremely dysfunctional social circle must also contend with a rapist who is stalking her.

Considering how I mainly know Paul Verhoeven for his forays into Hollywood genre fare, actually getting around to watching one of his non-Hollywood features has made me realise that I'm doing the man a disservice. Elle marks quite the introduction to this side of Verhoeven as it delivers a complex psychological drama that weaves together many disparate threads in constructing protagonist Michéle (a magnificent Isabelle Huppert). It begins with Michéle being violently raped in her own home by a masked man; though she attempts to go on with her life, she still keeps receiving threatening messages and worries that her attacker could be any one of her male acquaintances. This only adds to the many existing sources of conflict in her life, many of which come down to strained relationships with other people. To list them all would take up a paragraph on its own, but needless to say there are a lot of characters with a variety of complicated connections to Michéle. Parents, children, friends, neighbours, lovers (past and present), co-workers...the list goes on. It is a testament to Verhoeven's capabilities as a filmmaker that he is able to juggle so many disparate threads without any of them getting entangled and confusing. That's not to say that credit shouldn't go to the supporting cast, all of whom are at least capable of holding their own against Huppert and distinguishing themselves for the better.

Elle frequently invokes discomfort on both a visceral and psychological level, but none of it ever comes across as excessive or exploitative. Its treatment of a volatile subject like rape is as complicated as its protagonist; it may not go for easy answers, but that doesn't mean that it settles for baseless harshness either. The mystery of the attacker's identity may drive the plot to an extent but it's far more than a simple whodunit; at times, it seems like little more than a rudimentary backbone to a film that is more concerned with examining the aftermath of such a heinous act and how it impacts on every single relationship in Michéle's life; not only does she start to suspect people, but it only heightens many existing tensions that involve everything from infidelity to decades-old traumas. The technique involved reflects the perpetual uncertainty of a trauma survivor's mindset with competence, resulting in a film that is often jarring without ever becoming incoherent. The film may have some unusual developments (such as a sub-plot involving a videogame company) but Verhoeven never plays anything for more absurdity than is absolutely necessary, resulting in what may just be one of the best films of the year.