DVD Review: Passion

By Less Lee Moore

Oh, Brian De Palma. You broke my heart but I keep coming back. First, it was Mission To Mars, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (and this from a diehard MST3K fan). Then it was the dreadful adaptation of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia. Still, I was excited about Passion. Noomi Rapace and Rachel Adams in an erotic thriller with lesbian undertones? Who could resist? Not me.

The critics weren’t kind at Passion‘s TIFF premiere in 2012. But Noomi Rapace! Rachel McAdams! Erotic thriller! Plus a score from the great Pino Donaggio. My desire to see the film did not wane.

Well, I’ve now seen Passion. And I have a lot of thoughts, and most of them good. It’s vintage De Palma, that is for certain: heightened emotion masking flatness of emotion, weird artificiality bleeding through lush production design, over-the-top music, exquisite framing, and outlandish narrative. I haven’t seen Alain Corneau’s 2011 inspiration Crime d’amour, so I can’t speak to it, but I now understand why so many hated Passion. It’s not a straightforward movie; it’s a straight-up giallo. Forget Hitchcock. It’s all Italian. There’s even a police investigation, a hallmark of the genre.

It would be so easy to mock, to complain that Passion is a terrible movie. Over-acted, oddly scored, and full of seemingly forced conflict. But then, there are hints that this is not the case. Rachel Adams as Christine dressed in baby blue, ice grey, fuschia, and red; on a gold velvet couch. Noomi Rapace as Isabelle, always in black, never with lipstick, her brown eyes like pools of unattainable secrets. And Karoline Herfurth as Isabelle’s faithful assistant Dani, in vests and leopard print, wearing denim cut offs over tights to the office. Christine gives Isabelle a white scarf, buys her red fuck-me pumps, and applies her own scarlet lipstick to Isabelle’s mouth. It’s a power struggle through fashion. There’s even a runway show of footwear.

That white mask with the blonde wig? Sure, it’s Christine’s but it might as well belong to Isabelle, or even Dani. They are the ones with something to hide. Christine is a manipulative bitch and that’s never in question. Look at how she emasculates the two men in her office. And then there’s Dani, who has her own agenda.

The office setting and the infamous campaign: We know what it’s about, but after endless meetings and scheming, we don’t actually know anything. Only American Psycho gets as close to portraying the vapidity of the corporate world so accurately. For those who would accuse De Palma of creating drama out of thin air, have you ever worked in an office? I rest my case. Jury, you’re excused.

Dinaggio’s score is perfect for this unreal world that evokes the stereotypes of the early ’80s female executive without the shoulder pads and fussy female neckties. It’s like an hyper-stylized version of Working Girl. Woven through this is the thread of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and the ballet performance that you’ll notice before it becomes part of the plot. Why Debussy? Why the Jerome Robbins interpretation of Nijinsky’s controversial performance?

It’s not just an excuse for De Palma to dip back into his well of split screen or alternative viewpoints of a scene. Is it a comment on the static nature of Nijinsky’s (and later Robbins’s) staging contrasted with the dancer’s lusty movements? Is it that the dancers are looking at the camera while Dani films Isabelle looking at them? If De Palma is about anything, he’s about looking, seeing (and not seeing), and voyeurism. The campaign is about a cell phone camera; how much more classic De Palma can you get?

Then, when everything gets truly bizarre, DP José Luis Alcaine forgets to change the light bulbs and open the blinds, and his camera seems to be tilting to the side. Yes, it’s an obvious metaphor for “things are going very wrong,” but have you seen Suspiria lately? Again, this is all done for a specific reason and if the audience isn’t it on it, it doesn’t work.

That’s part of the problem with Passion. De Palma fans, especially the old school ones, will likely eat this up. If you liked The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, then Passion is for you. If you’re looking for actual passion, or a standard erotic thriller, look elsewhere. For a movie that apes the giallo so beautifully there is disappointingly little sex and even less blood. Then again, this is Brian De Palma and he does things his own way.

There are so many more things to discuss about Passion, but to mention any more of them will ruin the enjoyment of seeing them for yourself. It’s the kind of movie that you want to watch again the next day to try to piece together all the odd clues and bits of symbolism. What was the last movie you saw that made you want to do that?

Passion was released on DVD through eOne Entertainment on November 5. Special features include interviews with De Palma, McAdams, and Rapace.