Demonlover
Entry updated 23 April 2025. Tagged: Film.
French film (2002). Elizabeth Films. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas. Cast includes Charles Berling, Gina Gershon, Connie Nielsen and Chloë Sevigny. 115 minutes. Colour.
In the near future, rival executives at the Volf Corporation attempt to gain the rights to a Japanese Anime company, who are soon to make a breakthrough in 3D hentai (pornographic anime). Diane de Monx (Nielsen) attempts to sideline Hervé (Berling) and Elise (Sevigny), as it is revealed that she is a spy for Mangatronics, the main rival to Demonlover, the distributor with which Volf enters into a deal. She also discovers that Demonlover is a front for the Hellfire Club, which broadcasts real-life interactive Torture porn on the internet.
In her attempts to download incriminating evidence, Diane is interrupted by Demonlover representative Elaine (Gershon), whom Diane kills in the ensuing struggle. The death is covered up by Elise, who is also secretly working for Demonlover, and who uses footage of it to threaten to blackmail Diane, and forces her to join the Hellfire Club. Diane is drugged and taken to a dungeon in a desert, from which she almost escapes, but ultimately is kept prisoner to be tortured and filmed for the website. The film ends with a teenage boy entering details into the website of what he would like to see being done to her.
Demonlover was one of the first attempts on film to locate Internet culture, and particularly its darker aspects, in the framework of corporate espionage, utilizing a tone rather more cerebral and less effects-driven than most Hollywood thrillers, though still with the requisite twists and double crosses. Many critics at the time found it incoherent, especially the somewhat chaotic final scenes, but its concerns have not become less relevant over time, and the very fine cast helps. [CWa]
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