But here - January's cinema repertoire gave us a reason to connect these two countries, that is, their cinematography (and that in their Americanized sub-spheres) in the sense of a strong analogy, if not a deeply permeating conceptual and (cine)aesthetic rhyme. Namely, the eagerly awaited erotic drama here as well Lust (originally - Baby girl) once only by the Dutch actress and now apparently more and more by the American director (and screenwriter) Halina Reijn is a case of good and noticed shooting, basically a lot like the Oscar nominations it is now showered with Substances (The Substance) by French filmmaker Coralie Farge. At the same time, the essential connective tissue is not deservedly prominent female characters nor their acting exponents (and two actresses of more or less the same generation, especially in terms of the chronology of their penetration into the Hollywood first league - Nicole Kidman and Demi Moore - and both are obviously in the acting form of life!). No, the key link here is what's in the critique Substances a few months ago and right on the pages of "Vremena" it was mentioned as the crowning objection to that film, and now, here, in an instant, it is also noticeable in Rejna's Lust - with these works, both authors have certainly entered the territory of festival (yet sufficiently communicative) arthouse film, following the thread of a kind of gentrification of largely despised genre patterns from past eras. And in that sense there is that striking similarity between Substances (shown at Cannes, where Demi Moore was showered with unison praises from everyone) and Lust (it premiered just a few months later in Venice, where Nicole Kidman won the Golden Lion for Best Actress). The principle is, therefore, to a significant extent the same: Farge uses the legacy of the body horror film of the seventies and eighties, and her influence here also reaches the eddies of C film production, while Halina Reijn chooses the dramatic pediment of the heritage of erotic thrillers from the nineties as a framework inspiration in terms of style and atmosphere, with an emphasis on stories about transgressions and the subsequent suffering of women who resist their beings carefully enough until the middle of the first roll of the film. dull veins of the skin and skin. And there is that analogy, and perhaps the germ of some kind of wave of gentrification of the film treasures of the past and the aesthetically never honestly and thoroughly validated legacy of a clearly profiled and structured film by genre. In essence, this complaint is not a complaint that diminishes the overall value of these two successful and certainly much-needed films, but rather should be viewed and understood as a concern over possibly questionable authorial approaches in relation to those who bravely and from a significantly lower and less favorable starting position and unknowingly paved the way for those whose time is yet to arrive, and who, well, now have the luxury of, in the post-postmodern era, in which citation and multi-referentiality are even desirable determinants and confirmations of authorship self-awareness, they serve what was left behind for those who nevertheless showed more determination and vulnerability both in terms of production and authorship.
Admittedly, there are also big differences - for example, where Faržeova u Substances also reaches for a kind of resolution on the topic of the use of mountains (gore, depictions of bloodshed, disintegration, consequences of endemic violence), Halina Reijn u Lust equally bravely re-examines the boundaries of the representation of skin and sex (in a film which, in the prime part of its screening destiny, should appear in front of a significantly wider and more numerous audience), and all this in the context of filmmaking under the watchful eyes and censors and the stopwatch of a newly arrived caste called intimacy coordinators. And hers Lust in the motivic-thematic-ideal fabric, he wants to speak in the manner of a study about the hidden and perhaps socially condemned need for as complete intimacy as possible, so it happened both outside of marriage conventions and covenants and against them. In that transgenerational and transclass framework of the story, which, among other things, is similar to the local film Clip screenwriter and director Maja Miloš (and by the way, he had the world premiere, both festival and overall, at the prestigious film festival in Rotterdam, i.e. in the Netherlands), this film tries to show the genesis of a love and closeness that begins to evolve in reverse in relation to what is established - it moves from mere, atavistic physical attraction, to a level accompanied by the need for erotic games and enhancements, and it arrives, of course, with a lot of victims and public scandals, to true connection. And just as the deep-rooted machismo of Serbian society (often in collaboration with the moral panic always close to it) was both a limiter and a target for Maja Miloš and her To the clip, as well Lust we can see it as the dissolution of the ossified, above all in the current understanding of the representation of sexuality on film in this so-called liberal today.
I Lust, like not only It clicks i Substances, but also visibly more widely in that sphere (which is not at all surprising when films with a clear thesis are in the spotlight), starts from an intentionally rudimentary plot - the main character is a high-ranking corporate executive who tries to lead the way in innovations in the production of robots that speed up industrial production in the field of goods storage (which then has to be understood as a clear counterpoint to the still unconquered human need for commotion and the strongest disturbance on the personal, that is, on micro-plan), and the story, followed by scenes of marital happiness with an equally successful husband also of strong erotic energy, heats up with the appearance of a quarter-century younger intern (in Serbian - apprentice) who gently draws her into the erotic game of seduction for small installments and tranches, which, of course, could cost her her job, and reputation, and family harmony, and her hard-earned position in society. It is interesting that the author uses this motif of the huge age difference (which is underlined by the insistence on playful infantility as one of the constants and anchor points of the character played by the young Harris Dickinson, unmistakably up to the acting task, always with the decoration of the British underplay) treats the same as the fear of losing reputation and acquired privileges in the business and family sense, which then opens up space for herself to deal more closely with what is clearly a higher priority. And the kanda here is a priority of weighing today's limits of social friction and the struggle for supremacy (in Anglo-Saxon - power play), which leads to the sad but above all true-loving observation that many of us do not have a strong enough and even more articulate urge to fight for our own freedom, thus we personally uphold the pillars of society whose rigidity, obstinacy and traditionalism we nominally despise so heartily. Lust is in this respect both honest and, let's repeat the same epithet, a heart-felt depiction of the occasional need for freedom, embodied both in breathing as full as possible and in the self-destruction of what is acquired and/or just socially imposed. Against the background of that judgment, it is not surprising that the frequent scenes of sex are mostly theatrically choreographed and pretentious, as well as performative in their essence, and of a far less penetrating type, which represents the author's evident effort to underline what is more important to her here, which is a reminder that interclass friction is necessary in order for a bloodied society to sink into routine, self-sufficiency, mannerism, and passwords that we all exchange on the way to some kind of top, so he was both fanciful and unnecessary. The mechanics of the erotic game for supremacy between Romy (Nicole Kidman) and Samuel (Harris Dickinson) seems to echo, above all else, the thought we find in the pages of the study. Psychoanalysis and revolution Ian Parker and David Pavon-Kueljer (translated by Nemanja Pantović, Marko Jovanović and Stevan Bradić, recently published by Prelom in Novi Sad): "Sex has been transformed into one of the key points of society, as a transmitter of power, but also as a rebellion against it. This is another reason why sex is central to psychoanalysis; sex operates as a historically constructed symptomatic core of social relations in a class society. These relations of dominance, but also of struggle and conflict, are articulated around and based on the sexual axis. Patriarchy is inseparable from capitalism. Consumerism and capitalist hunger reveal strongly sexualized possessive tendencies”. And just like that – Lust is, among other things, a chronicle of efforts to determine what belongs to someone and to what extent, what is given to whom and under what conditions, and sex, like death, for example, in that complex and even frantic equation, is a great equalizer, i.e. an equalizer of what - and this is cynical, but also the only truthful and honest conclusion that can be drawn here - cannot be changed and transformed at the current level of devolution and civilization and our collective awareness of it and ourselves.
Lust, of course, can also be enhanced by the superb performance of the precisely led and directed actors (and Halina Reijn is, first of all, a trained actress with extensive experience in the top theater, where this, after Instinct in the native Netherlands and postmodern horror-comedies Fabric, fabric, fabric in the USA, only her third feature-length directorial), and on the second, third... ball, it is intriguing to study how she points out the interaction between the actors of the story and the scenography in the manner of a highly refined ultra-urban neon noir and costumes (which is embodied in the mournful gray suit of unspecified contours worn by Samuel and the gaudy clothes chosen by Roumy, which strictly follow the line of her honest body, while still acting as a theatrical costume emptied of meaning in the more realistic context of wearing). In terms of influence, we also mention Night porter Liliane Cavani, and Unbeliever (but in the director's vision of the remake of that classic - Adriana Lein), Disclosure Barry Levinson (and Michael Crichton), not only Basic Instinct but also other works by Paul Verhoeven, even the famous VHS classic Body chemistry Christine Peterson... And in the first place is the unsurpassed role model of all such stories - unforgettable The last seduction (The Last Seduction, 1994) by John Dahl, with the clear fence that (at least for now) no one and nothing can overshadow Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) from that masterpiece). All this is just an additional clarification, because Lust, despite its strong referentiality and that still debatable rush of gentrification, is not a collection of borrowings, but a high-quality and unique film that definitely has a lot of interesting and intellectually potent and polemical things to say about the time that gave birth to it and which this film, with due respect to its main author, tries to paint and show.
