"The girls are mind-fucking each other: Christine uses every psychological means in the book to break Noomi, she traps her, she humiliates her in front of her co-workers, until Noomi finally snaps."

The LCI reporter says, "After his last film flopped, De Palma has turned his back on Hollywood to point his cameras on a Berlin as down-to-earth as it is dreamt up, using his personal grammar with a brilliance as seductive as it is cringe-inducing."

(Thanks to Patrick!)

In any case, the other Donaggio compositions are phenomenal. The CD opens with the bouncy, sinuous "Twin Souls," which is just heavy enough to avoid sounding like it belongs in a somewhat romantic comedy (like, perhaps, De Palma's Home Movies). "The Breakdown" is a beautiful piano ballad that brings to mind Donaggio's "Sally And Jack" theme from De Palma's Blow Out, especially when it is reprised on the final track, "Last Surprise." It is not until the third track that we get the "Passion Theme," which opens with quickly menacing chords, like a Herrmann-esque surprise, before falling back to a quiet piano motif that soon swells with romantic strings and ominous orchestrations. This is a wonderful theme that never seems to stop rising, with a conclusion that seems to leave everything hanging on the edge. I think my favorite track is "Know That Know," which features a heavy, spaced out string bass rhythm, the spaces filled in with strings and other orchestrations, and sounds like a cousin to Morricone's "Towards The Unknown" from De Palma's Mission To Mars. It ends with a slashing string surprise out of Carrie or Dressed To Kill (and, of course, Herrmann's Psycho). "A Dreamers Dream" features more ominous musings that lead beautifully into the Debussy ballet.

All in all, a strong, achingly beautiful work from Donaggio.

(Scroll your mouse over the emptiness below for translations of the tweets above.)

Pauline: "If someone can explain to me the end of "Passion" by Brian de Palma ..."

"The script, based on Alain Corneau's French film Love Crime, isn't De Palma's strongest, and especially those with an aversion to dream-logic will probably have a hard time staying on board during the last half-hour or so. That said, having seen the film twice, I can say it mostly holds up, though there are a few baffling loose ends. But De Palma has never made movies for people who want every dangling thread tied up and every plot twist totally plausible.

"Also, While he employs every psycho-thriller cliché in the book, De Palma still seems to see the movie as more of a comedy than anything else. The performances often veer into kitsch, but Rapace and McAdams somehow make all of the veiled threats and passive-aggressive sparring hypnotic, rather than grating. In fact, the stylized acting melds perfectly into De Palma's fictional, over-the-top corporate world, in which every shot emphasizes a sense of luxury that is simultaneously exquisite, ridiculous and dull. Pino Donaggio's cheeky score, a scene-chewing blend of Bernard Herrmann and music from a 90's made-for-tv-thriller, only further emphasizes this odd, often very funny dynamic. The lighting too sometimes veers into soap-opera territory, which, while it compliments the overall style, will likely disappoint those hoping for the sumptuous, decadent aesthetic of old-school De Palma.

"But as usual, the film's pulpy kitsch conceals some extremely compelling subtext. The way that corporate ambition colors all of the characters' seemingly fluid sexuality, and even their sense of time and reality, is far more layered and intriguing than the film's surface-level style suggests, and, those who have accused De Palma of being nothing more than a talentless Hitchcock imitator may find some wry humor in the scenes where Christine explains to Isabelle that stealing ideas is par for the course in the advertising world. Moreover, the depth with which De Palma explores Christine's ruthless, near socio-pathic psyche is impressive. As the film progresses, he begins to hint at a fascinating, almost sympathetic desperation deep down, governing all of her decisions...

"...there are still a few genuinely inspired moments that recall the devilish ingenuity of De Palma-past. In one scene, Isabelle slams her car into a vending machine in a parking garage and sets off the sprinkler above, resulting in a melodramatic crane shot (complete with swelling score) of her crying uncontrollably against the car like a rain-soaked, heart-broken character from a 50's melodrama. Only, her anguish is the result of a sex tape, and she's actually only stuck in a small swatch of 'rain' inside a parking garage. It's a sly, hilarious image, right up there with De Palma's use of rear-projection for the beach kiss in Body Double. If... De Palma had focused more on subverting and innovating what he had already done rather than just referencing it, Passion may have been the 'return to form' he seems to want it to be."

Meanwhile, here are more links and quotes from the recent French reviews of Passion:

Eric Libiot, L'Express
"If the confrontation turns into a game of mirrors depalmesque, it remains constrained by a storyline with a fairly basic depiction of the workplace (in any case, De Palma doesn’t care and filmed it with one eye) and suspense visible for miles, slow in coming, with cushy staging. Taking the principles he sublimated in his time and in which he wades today (parallel editing, split screen ...), he is unable to offer anything other than his old recipes. It is a thousand times better to eat a good crêpe."

The Vug, Celluloidz
"As there is a genuine rise in dramatic tension, once the film is launched on its rails, its greatest merits revert just as much to the direction of Brian De Palma as to the interpretation of the always flawless Noomi Rapace. As soon as she enters the dark phase of her character, the plans begin to lose their horizontality and the lighting becomes abnormally low. We will thus view Passion, like all of De Palma’s films since Snake Eyes, mainly to understand how the director manages to transcend a weak screenplay by the sheer force of his cinematic mise en scène. For those who want a consistent story, they will unfortunately go elsewhere."

Merry, Onlike
"Divided into two parts, this thriller is draped in two very different atmospheres, the first all in slow movements, the second bathed in shadow, as to describe these two women, one light and one dark. Between dream and reality, Brian De Palma revisits his own mythology and delivers a thriller effective and captivating."

Nicolas Bardot, Film De Cult
"But as in Body Double, film unthinkable, fascinating, exciting to death and kitschy as hell, it is not the mere fact of being shocked that makes Passion successful. It is, as in the best films of De Palma, this lack of fear of ridicule and grandiose momentum that make its intrigues heartening, where extreme feelings of the characters explode on the screen. The cold and trapped universe of Passion brightens, as in the stuffy fashion show where a model ends up kicking your ass. Yet, Passion does not reach the astro level of Dressed To Kill or Body Double. The original script's absurdity remains absurd, the cool tones of the images shot by José Luis Alcaine (Almodovar collaborator) sometimes makes the film a little too dull where it should have dreamed hot, and Passion, in the film of De Palma, is perhaps a bit hollow."