You Don’t Nomi: Defending Showgirls

Only a certain kind of film can sustain a documentary of its own. Usually, they are good films that either support strange interpretations (as with Room 237 on The Shining) or were the result of notoriously dramatic production shoot (like The Exorcist). Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls stands in a classless class by itself. Initially reviled, it has developed a weird cult following, with Midnight screenings in the tradition of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Several of its most vocal champions explain why the 1995 bomb was better (or at least more interesting) than people thought in Jeffrey McHale’s You Don’t Nomi, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

There is probably more nudity and sex in Nomi than maybe any other documentary ever reviewed here, but that makes perfect sense if you know anything about Showgirls. It was conceived as the deliberately NC-17 follow-up from director Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Esterhas, who scored a big hit with the risqué thriller Basic Instinct. It was Hollywood going full frontal and then some. The problem is the dialogue and characterization were even more outrageous, but in the wrong kind of way that invites use of the “c” word: “camp.”

Although none of the cast or crew appear in sit-down interviews to justify themselves, McHale’s experts clearly sympathize with lead actress Elizabeth Berkley. They clearly establish it was Verhoeven who pushed and prodded her to go bigger, broader, and crazier in her portrayal of Nomi Malone—and then basically left her exposed to the withering critical reception. They even make compelling connections between her striving teen character on Saved by the Bell and her often inappropriately manic performance as Malone—which April Kidwell explicitly alludes to (and satirizes) as the star of the Off-Broadway musical adaptation.

Isabelle Huppert Dominates Elle

The depressing truth is a film like this can no longer get produced in America, because there is no longer popular support for free expression that holds the potential to offend. Paul Verhoeven tried, but no American actress of any prominence would touch the diva-ready lead role with a fifty-foot pole. Instead, he fell back on plan B: filming in France with the great Isabelle Huppert. It is probably only a matter of time before the censorious, censoring social justice warriors justify Hollywood’s fears by forcing the film out of general circulation. Honestly, anyone interested in Verhoeven’s Elle (trailer here), the Dutch filmmaker’s first French-language production, should plan to see it as soon as possible, after it opens tomorrow in New York.

Take heed, there is a lot of tough stuff in Elle. One night, workaholic Michelle LeBlanc is raped inside her tony Parisian townhouse. There is no mistaking the violence of her attack, but it also seems strangely person. Having highly compelling reasons to distrust the police, LeBlanc coolly and systematically increases her personal security, so that when her assailant returns, it is more of a fair fight, but the end result remains the same.

Through sheer force of will, LeBlanc continues going about her daily business, dealing with development issues at the video game company she co-founded (its specialty is sexual violent fantasy games) and breaking off her affair with her business partner’s husband. He will be one of several potential suspects who hover around LeBlanc, sometimes giving the film the vibe of the ultra-provocative Agatha Christie mystery she never dreamed of writing. However, as LeBlanc conducts her own private inquiry, she starts openly inviting further encounters with her attacker, which is clearly intended to make us wonder how willing a participant she was, even from the brutal beginning.

It is important to note Verhoeven is not suggesting all victims have ambivalent feelings regarding their attackers. That simply may or may not be the decidedly extreme case for LeBlanc. However, that distinction is sure to be lost on the professionally offended. Once the SJW set understands the film presents rape in a murky and ambiguous manner, they are sure to demand it be censored for all mature adults.

That is a shame, because despite its admittedly lurid inclinations, Elle is an all too rare example of bold, risk-taking filmmaking. Verhoeven really goes for broke and the results are always fascinating, even when they get messy, credibility-challenged, and downright creepy.

Of course, it is immediately apparent this film could only be made with Huppert. Physically, she is deceptively slight, but her forceful, caustic presence absolutely commands the screen. In many respects, her character is extraordinarily unsympathetic, yet she holds us utterly riveted. Oddly, one could argue this is a women’s film, because the only supporting player who can match her to any extent is Anne Consigny as Anna, her sexually ambiguous friend and co-founder.

Elle sometimes falls flat on its face, but there is so much rich text, sub-text, and meta-text, it demands serious analysis. As a sensationalistic thriller, it is also surprisingly adept, but that has always been Verhoeven’s specialty. This is a film that should inspire debates for years to come, but one fears they will be choked off by the intolerantly hyper-sensitive. Recommended for fully informed, open-minded Huppert and Verhoeven fans, Elle opens tomorrow (11/11) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Tricked: Paul Verhoeven Harnesses the Dutch Internet

Perhaps Paul Verhoeven should have used this crowd-sourcing technique for Hollow Man. It is far from fool-proof, but at least he could have avoided its creepy rapiness. Instead, Verhoeven employed the distributed networking model for his hyped-up follow-up to his triumphant Dutch homecoming film Black Book. He started with four scripted minutes, relying on the internet to provide the rest of Tricked (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

In four minutes, Kim van Kooten establishes the eight main characters. The rest was crowd-sourced or “user-generated.” It sounds pretty straight forward, but Verhoeven and his cast talk about it in agonizing detail in the “making of” epk-ish film that screens ahead of the fifty-five minute Tricked. From all their talk of breakthroughs and innovations, you would think they were filming the first soundie. Perhaps the only surprising revelation is the relatively high quality of submissions. Verhoeven expected to lean on a handful of super-users, but he had binders full of contributions that were under consideration.

So it took hundreds of Dutch viewers to tell the tale of Remco, the philandering head of an architectural firm, who is under pressure from his two partners to sell out to the Chinese. At the worst possible time, Nadja, his former office hook-up returns from abroad with a massive baby bump. That gives his wife Ineke all kinds of attitude, but his current mistress Merel takes it more in stride. Since she is besties with Remco’s boozy party-girl daughter Lieke, she is not about to get all dramatic and call attention to their affair.

The fact that Tricked is a bit of a tonal mishmash really isn’t Verhoeven’s fault, since he really had no idea where it was headed. Likewise, the cast is also understandably tentative in the early going. Having no idea if their characters are ultimately sympathetic or detestable, they had to keep their options open. Frankly, the fact that it flows together as smoothly as it does is quite impressive. In fact, plenty of credit is due to Verhoeven and editor Job Ter Burg.

Veteran Dutch actor Peter Blok is appealingly roguish as Remco and Gaite Jensen is quite dynamic and engaging as the surprisingly proactive Merel. However, seven hundred Dutchmen should really have their heads examined for making Remco’s slacker son Tobias into a supposedly endearing antisocial pervert. Robert de Hoog does his best under the circumstances, but his scenes courting Merel are face-palm worthy.

Given the nature of the project, most of the blame for what does not work can also be distributed among hundreds of contributors. The one glaring exception is Fons Merkies’ ghastly score. Verhoeven and his cast put in a lot of work to make this gimmick look like legitimate cinema, but the carnival-style music makes you expect to see twenty or thirty clowns come piling out of a compact car.

Essentially, Tricked started out as an earnest attempt at sexual intrigue, but became a parody of sudsy melodramas. The important thing is it manages to be watchable in a less trainwreckish kind of way than some of Verhoeven’s notorious films (Showgirls anyone?). Recommended for the curious, Tricked opens today (2/26) in New York at the Cinema Village and also launches day-and-date on Fandor, but without the relentlessly self-congratulatory behind-the-scenes video, therefore making it the preferred viewing alternative.