Red Rooms (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Red Rooms (2023) – P. Plante

There’s a long tradition of sadistic directors encouraging viewers to identify with unseemly characters, epitomised by Hitchcock’s choices in Rear Window (1954), where Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff does some recreational spying on his neighbours, uncovering some unsavoury business.  Here, director Pascal Plante introduces us to Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), an edgy haute couture model, already deep into fascination with accused serial killer Ludovic Chevalier, attending his murder trial every day (which requires sleeping outside the courthouse each night to get a place in the gallery).  Chevalier is accused of creating snuff films and offering them on the dark web to viewers in exchange for bitcoins in what are known as “red rooms”.  It’s hard not to think of Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) and the illegal broadcasts offered there.  Soon, we realise that Kelly-Anne is already well familiar with the dark web, raising her own stash of bitcoin with cold-hearted online poker playing. Perhaps Kelly-Anne has something in common with this serial killer? When she takes another groupie under her wing, the naivité of the younger girl might be forever lost. As the film progresses, viewers are forced to contemplate how much they would be willing to watch the snuff films in question, wondering whether the film will actually show them, and of course, why they would be watching a film where this is even a possibility. It’s hard not to feel dirty, even if the film’s conclusion offers an unexpected twist that might recast Kelly-Anne’s hitherto unknown motives.

 

Winter Kills (1979)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Winter Kills (1979) – W. Richert

I wonder if the Coen Brothers were thinking about Winter Kills when they cast Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowksi? Although he’s much younger here, he also plays a much put-upon “straight” character caught up in zany episodic situations beyond his control. In this film, he’s the much younger half-brother of the assassinated president who is provided with evidence that contradicts that single-shooter theory put forward by a Government Commission.  With pressure from his father (John Huston), he descends into the rabbit hole.  If this plot sounds like a thinly veiled retake of the events surrounding JFK’s shooting, it shouldn’t take long to confirm when faced with characters like “Joe Diamond” (Eli Wallach), in lieu of “Jack Ruby” of course (all from Richard Condon’s novel).  And it also doesn’t take long before the serious subject matter starts to give way to some blackly comic moments, as Nick Kegan (Bridges) finds himself confronting a range of eccentric characters played by well-known character actors: Sterling Hayden, Ralph Meeker, Richard Boone, Toshiro Mifune, Anthony Perkins, even Elizabeth Taylor (in a well-paid cameo). Not unlike the real thing, the conspiracy theory laid out here includes various red herrings and dead ends (with most informants meeting unfortunate fates after providing evidence).  Letting things wash over you without worrying too much about details is probably the best strategy.  And, in the end, the film ties things together with a truism about power and money that doesn’t feel wrong. A lost half-baked classic of sorts.