Her Private Hell, Nicolas Winding Refn's latest cinematic offering, is a mesmerizing journey into the surreal and the sublime. This film, which has been excluded from the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, is a bold statement about the future of cinema, challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries of what we expect from a movie. It's a trippy, dreamlike experience that leaves a lasting impression, much like the early works of Kenneth Anger or the experimental films of the 20th century.
What makes Her Private Hell truly stand out is its score by Pino Donaggio. The soundtrack is not just a backdrop; it's the secret sauce that binds the film together. Donaggio's achingly emotional score provides the much-needed context to Refn's style-overloaded vision, guiding the film in a way that music hasn't since the early silents or the heyday of Powell & Pressburger. It's a testament to the power of music in cinema, and a reminder of the importance of context in storytelling.
The film's setting is a surreal futuristic Japanese city of the most unrealistic high-rise kind. The story revolves around Elle (Sophie Thatcher), who is about to make a film with a younger influencer type named Hunter (Kristine Froseth). Hunter is obsessed with fame and obsessed with Elle, and the film draws heavily on Ingmar Bergman's 1966 psychodrama Persona, a work that no genre director has ever not found endlessly fascinating. As the film progresses, we are introduced to Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), Elle's former lover and now her father's new wife, adding a layer of complexity to the narrative.
The 'inciting incident' is a murder in a nearby tower block, which sets the stage for the myth of The Leather Man, a tormented, Orpheus-like demon with piercing red eyes and razor-sharp diamond-studded gloves. The film then jumps to a scene from a breathlessly exciting space movie, with Elle starring as the leader of a female sci-fi movie that looks like a fantastic space-opera version of Tarantino's Fox Force Five. This is a nod to Refn's past interest in remaking Barbarella.
The arrival of Private K (Charles Melton), an American GI on the trail of The Leather Man, adds another layer of complexity to the narrative. Private K is not connected to the main story, but as in Refn's Thailand-set horror-thriller Only God Forgives, there is a sense that justice can be willed into life in the east. It's a sense that Elle has somehow summoned Private K into being, as the father she will never have.
The genius of Her Private Hell is that it offers nothing really concrete, just a lot of satisfying triggers and sensory associations. The actors feel that energy too, and the performances almost dare you to follow them, experimenting wildly with their characters in ways that make only the most subliminal kind of sense. It's a film that demands you pick a side, and it's either for you or it isn't.
In my opinion, Her Private Hell is a film that challenges the status quo and pushes the boundaries of what we expect from a movie. It's a bold statement about the future of cinema, and a reminder of the importance of context in storytelling. It's a film that demands you pick a side, and it's either for you or it isn't. Personally, I think it's a masterpiece that will leave a lasting impression on those who dare to explore its depths.
