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Passion REVIEWS


By Lee Marshall


The erotic thriller turns limp in Brian De Palma’s latest take on the genre, where even the sexual decadence is of the clichéd lace and carnival-mask variety, and the high-profile casting of Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace in the two main roles works a lot better on paper than it does in practice. Returning to the territory of Dressed To Kill and Body Double, the veteran US director finds surprisingly little to add to his source material, the late Alain Corneau’s final film, Love Crime, about the sexually charged rivalry between a female boss and her protégée. Fumbling the halfway-point genre-shift that is


managed so effortlessly in the French original, De Palma glues together what feel like two different films here: a female rivalry drama-thriller, and a murder mystery. And though the exercise carries an undertow of tongue-in-cheek pastiche, this is so inconsistently applied it feels like an escape clause. Made entirely with European money, the film is


set mostly in Berlin, with dialogue predominantly in English. Given the woodenness of some of the latter, however, this will not necessarily be a plus in Anglophone territories — in fact dubbing and sub- titling could do Passion a service. Whereas Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine


Sagnier fully inhabited their roles in the original as domineering boss and sexy, ambitious but fragile underling, McAdams and Rapace never really con- vince as rich, manipulative and self-assured adver- tising executive Christine and talented but rather


All That Matters Is Past Reviewed by Tim Grierson


The mystery behind a murder unearths many secrets but not enough surprises in All That Mat- ters Is Past, a romantic drama that is overripe with tragic undertones. Though this tale of two brothers and the woman they love is anchored by stripped- down performances, Norwegian writer-director Sara Johnsen’s third feature fails to modulate its dramatic intensity, which ends up suffocating rather than elevating the proceedings. All That Matters will be released in Norway on


November 2, but its international possibilities look limited to arthouses. The film boasts no stars, but its fractured timeline and bleak tone could appeal to those who favour the work of director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who operates in a similar vein. The film opens with our three leads — Janne


(Bonnevie) and brothers William (Joner) and Ruud (Dencik) — in the forest in the midst of a tense, unexplained face-off. The killing of one of the three prompts a visit from a local detective (Heiskanen), who traces back the events that built to this deadly confrontation. Though All That Matters may superficially seem


like just another drama about an ill-fated love tri- angle, Johnsen (Upperdog, Kissed By Winter) has grand ambitions, including a bold structure in which the film cuts back and forth between the trio’s childhood, their teen years, the three months before the murder and the days after the killing.


n 16 Screen International at Toronto September 9, 2012


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


Fr-Ger. 2012. 97mins Director/screenplay Brian De Palma Production company SBS productions Co-producersIntegral Film, France 2 Cinema International sales Wild Bunch, www.wildbunch.biz Producer Said Ben Said Cinematography Jose Luis Alcaine Editor Francois Gédigier Production designer Cornelia Ott Music Pino Donaggio Main cast Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson, Rainer Bock


innocent and insecure junior manager Isabelle. McAdams is better though at catching the playful, parody element in her role, something that Rapace, who is all intensity, seems to struggle with. Christine, who lives in an apartment that comes


across as a tad too brash and flashy for her charac- ter, likes tastefully kinky sex with rough-edged boyfriend Dirk (Anderson) and, it soon becomes clear, with other men. But she is also turned on by power, and is not afraid to swing both ways by turning her position over Isabelle into a sexual game. Isabelle, however, is playing her own games — giving in willingly to Dirk’s advances while on a business trip and, with the help of her loyal per-


sonal assistant Dani (Herfurth), a lesbian who is secretly in love with her boss, turning the tables on Christine after Christine takes credit for Isabelle’s well-received ad campaign idea. With little of the female attraction-repulsion


chemistry of Corneau’s film, Passion stretches cred- ibility as it shifts unexpectedly into murder-mys- tery territory. The film picks up a little when the mystery kicks in, but it is only a brief respite. Light- ing and cinematography shift us into darker terri- tory as the film progresses, while Pino Donaggio’s soundtrack — with its nods at ’70s and ’80s Italian genre fare — does its best to give the film an ironic sheen it never really merits.


CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA


Nor. 2012. 106mins Director/screenplay Sara Johnsen Production companies Nordisk Filmdistribusjon, 4½, BOB Film Sweden, Windelov/Lassen, Nordisk Film ShortCut International sales TrustNordisk, www.trustnordisk.com Producer Turid Oversveen Executive producers Hakon Overas, Karin Julsrud, Pal Sletaune, Marius Holst, Lone Korslund Cinematography John Andreas Andersen Production designer Jorgen Stangebye Larsen Editor Zaklina Stojcevska Music Fernando Velazquez Main cast Maria Bonnevie, Kristoffer Joner, David Dencik, Maria Heiskanen


The intercutting succeeds in creating a sense


these characters have always been bonded, their complicated relationship forged from the moment both brothers were drawn to Janne and she chose William. In addition, the film continually explores the conflicting beauty and terror of the natural world. Images of wild animals being skinned co- exist with tranquil lake scenes and graphic shots of a panicked childbirth. These juxtaposed visuals give the film an untamed, almost primitive ferocity that can be quite arresting. Unfortunately, Johnsen’s revelations about the


trio’s past are predictable, a strategy that produces diminishing dramatic returns. As entrancing as Johnsen’s intercutting can be, eventually the tech- nique begins to feel like a delivery device for unloading yet another shocking misery on the audience. Despite All That Matters’ sympathy for its unhappy characters, the film eventually resem- bles a chessboard on which Johnsen can move her luckless pawns. With that said, the performances merit special


attention, particularly Maria Bonnevie playing a woman powerless to resist William’s magnetic pull.


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