‘Her Private Hell’ movie review: Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton in Danish film ‘Bad Boy’ Nicholas Winding Refn’s painful return to filmmaking

Sometime after DrivingAnd maybe in between Only God forgives and Neon demonNicolas Winding Refn decided to produce films, as well as a few TV series, for Nicolas Winding Refn’s unique viewing pleasure.

This is great news if you’re Nicolas Winding Refn, who now runs under the Productions by NWR banner – proof that he’s turning to his own brand. It’s also great news if you’re one of his die-hard fans, who enjoy works that have become increasingly polite and indulgent: exquisitely crafted B-movies for a very select few.

But if you’re not one of the above, watching Refn’s new work can be a stressful experience, making one long for the pre-NWR days when the Danish auteur made ultra-violent, visually dazzling films like Refn’s. pushy triple, Bronson, Valhalla height And of course, Driving.

After a major health struggle that almost cost him his life, the director returns to making feature films after a ten-year absence Her own hellwhich premiered at midnight in Cannes. The fact that the film didn’t face any competition like Refn’s last three films gives you a glimpse of just how overly numbing his recent work has become, though you’ll have to experience it and sit down and see for yourself. To its credit, NWR gives us a warning early on when one of its characters says half-ironically: “This movie is going to be hell.” But that doesn’t make for viewing Her own hell That is, less hellish.

Set in a fog-filled, computer-generated, futuristic underworld that looks like the backdrop to a music video that aired on MTV in the late 1980s, the film is best described as a horror-thriller, though it’s more of a celebration of the genre through Refn’s classy, ​​opulent aesthetic, which leaves no stone unturned.

The story is easy to follow if you don’t care much about logic. Famous actress Elle (Sophie Thatcher) is holed up in a high-rise 5-star hotel while waiting to film her latest film called Candy Floss It seems like a new entry to star wars Imtiaz directed by NWR. This cliched and over-the-top production is merely the backdrop to the psychological drama that takes place between Elle and her star, Dominique (Havana Rose Leo), a girl her own age who is also, unfortunately, her stepmother.

Married to movie star father Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott) — no relation, apparently, to the late New York Dolls guitarist of the same name — Dominic shows up at the hotel and brings Elle’s father issues to the surface, forcing her to confront the many (neon) demons in her life. There’s also a real-life demon called the Leather Man, a sort of mythical horror creature that preys on lost little girls, tearing them apart with his elegant suede and rhinestone gloves.

But wait, we’ve now moved away to post-war Japan, where a soldier named Kai (Charles Melton) wanders the streets of Tokyo looking to confront the Leather Man with his bare fists, in hopes of saving his daughter from oblivion. Who knows how or why we got here, but at least the place gives Refn an excuse to film a gruesome fight scene between Kai and a very large yakuza clique.

This happens about halfway through Her own hellalthough it is possible that all non-NWR auxiliaries had been withdrawn by then. Excruciatingly dull and dull, the film often feels like it’s playing out in slow motion, with the actors straining to deliver phrases (“I’m a victim of the fog,” “I’m made of stardust”) that make little sense to us or to them. Milton — whom Refn calls topless or dressed in military or biker gear — actually appears to pass out during a ponderous monologue his character is listening to, while Thatcher and Leo do their best to stay engaged while their heroines get over it.

There are some good stabs at humor early on, and it’s too bad Refn doesn’t give us more jokes, because nothing on screen should be taken seriously. What seems very serious for the director is to pay homage to all the horror films he loves, whether they are Italian Gallo Clicks by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci or works by Brian De Palma, whose long-time composer Pino Donaggio provides the film’s operatic score.

For fans of these cultural works, which reached their peak at a time when Raven was growing up and discovering them for himself, Her own hell It plays like a nostalgic jewel box that literally looks like it was filmed inside a jewel box. The film is stylized to the point of abstraction. The budget for producing glitter, foil, clear plastic, light bulbs, smoke machines, and red or blue light-up gels must have exceeded everything else. Cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jonck (who shot the Refn Copenhagen Cowboy) creates some charming images from all that equipment, but too much of it can feel blinding, while production designer Gitte Malling’s lush sets are a series of cinephiles’ red rooms.

For all the effort put into producing something so lavish, it’s a shame that the film fails to hold our attention – and seems to resist it at times. When Refn burst onto the scene in the early 2000s, his work was anything but boring. It seemed bold and new, making the director an early leader of the “high genre” trend that brought B-movies into the art world. DrivingHis dramatic premiere at Cannes in 2011 was a tribute to his cinema, but perhaps also the turning point. Since then, NWR has gone further and further from his own obsessions, the latest of which has brought him to some level of hell. If his heroine manages to claw her way out by the end, overcoming her father problems and confronting the boogeyman, most of us are still stuck there.