[MHN Seoul] 'Elle'(Directed by Paul Verhoeven), the film that received 73 nominations, won 60 awards, standing ovation of course and listed on numerous ctirics' top ten lists and the best-of 2016 hit the theaters in Korea on the 15th. 

'Elle' is about a successful businesswoman, 'Michèle Leblanc'(Isabelle Huppert) getting caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man raping her. She is not only a confident and attractive woman but also the assertive head of a successful video game company, 'Cronus'. The movie opens by her getting raped by a man in a ski mask. on the floor of her own house. After the attacker goes away, Michèle acts surprisingly calm, locks the door, tidies the room and takes a bath looking at a blob of blood. Instead of calling the police, she visits a clinic for an STD test and relays the news of her attack to her dinner companions without a blink. There was actually a reason why she acts in an different way. Not because she is a middle-aged divorced woman, but she is the daughter of an oppressively religious heinous murderer father, who killed 27 neighbors, 6 dogs and 3 cats with no reason 39 years ago. As his parole application sheds new light of the old murder case, her nightmarish past harasses her.

The title 'Elle' is French for 'she' or 'her'. Was it to show a woman's psychologically twisted mind? With the painful childhood, she is charismatic, compelling and independent. Still, she is generous and dependent, and also charming and funny, which makes her character indefinable. Though she seems to get along with her employees and neighbors, she becomes hysteric like vandalising her ex-husband 'Richard(Charles Berling)'s car for no reason. She speaks roughly to her mother 'Irène Leblanc'(Judith Magre), over-Botoxed to consort with a young giglo. She is also a mother of a son 'Vincent'(Jonas Bloquet) working in a fast food franchise and he has a girlfriend pregnant with another man. Even the computers in her office suddenly feature animation of a princess with her face pasted being assaulted. Apparently, she has nobody to count on except her black cat. As she becomes more disillusioned, she counts a brazenly sexual relationship with her best friend 'Anna'(Anne Consigny)'s husband, 'Robert'(Christian Berkel) and also the married merried man 'Patrick'(Laurent Lafitte).

Everyone has a wound in mind. It is different in depth, duration, and degree. Thereby, personality and behavior can be changed and influence life. Living in full of ups and downs, Michele's life and suppressed anger release variously and it shows the complicated mind of a woman by action. In a world where we have to live having multiple personality for family, occupational, and social, 'Elle' describes the atmosphere of a fresh but unfamiliar thriller by drawing the life of the protagonist wonderfully.

pinkcat@mhns.co.kr