Finally, finally did I get the chance/courage/patiece to watch this film, with which my first acquaintance was the ordinary-looking poster hanging on the wall in the director's studio. To begin with to review this film briefly, it's actually not that bad as rumor says, and it would definitely be better if it's cut shorter.
The one thing that I appreciate the most about this film is the thrilling atmosphere created thoroughly. No doubt I was hitched quite a few times during by either the shots/photography or the music. Interestingly, the music, pillar contributor to this thriller, sounds very much like what we've heard from BASIC INSTINCT and it reminds me of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS as well. -- Does that mean this film is among those great thrillers because "great minds think alike"? Or, is it just a coincidental copycat?
I guess many of the viewers that headed for this film were initially tempted by the word-spread sex scenes. In that case, well, the director certainly doesn't make disappointment-- he got plenty of them, all through the film, quite much, quite often. BUT(here's a big but), what's the essential point of it? As much as I understand, the sex is the start of the story, obvoiusly, and in the following it helps the story evolve by making sense of the relationship between the two characters. --There's constant attraction and passion between them so they continuously stick together?! However, the sex "impressed" me by showing up so frequently but fading out so quickly. Huh? Yes, "Huh?" Is it intended to fill in the gaps left by actual plots? Like commercial breaks? Or is it delibrately placed there for the sake of just being there?
Like the hard-to-be-interpreted sex scenes, the story line seems rather difficult to be digested as a whole too. A quick check to the length, 100 minutes, does surprise me big, for I was literally feeling a passage of over 2 hours while watching the film. It is a well-known theory that a certain amount of questions need to be thrown along the way of expanding the story to grab & hold the viewers' curiosity to find out the answers in the end. The director does that, but over -- quite a few persons, if not the worldwide populartion, are thrown here and there to be suspected as the "real devil", but when it comes to the serious moment of revealing, it just happens bluntly in a snap -- OH, MY GOD~
Besides, as the whole, the story feels internally disconnected - two obviously-separated segments, or maybe unintentionally left, that how eagerly she wants to get into bed with him and how desperately she wants to get out. Let me take a wild guess -- the reason why the story is so slowly-paced, also why the film ends up this freaking long, is that the director wants to make every single detail perfectly clear so that the audience won't misunderstand anything of his portrait. In my two cents' worth, focusing too much on details could mislead you somewhere far from the scheduled destination. What's the difference between a talented student and a diligent student? -- You gotta know where to rest for fun and where to work your ass off.
