AND A COUPLE OF NEW STILLS SHOW NOOMI RAPACE AND THE PEUGEOT 208
The still above from Brian De Palma's Passion shows Noomi Rapace against the car her character has damaged. The photo made the rounds yesterday as the French automaker Peugeot spread the word that its 208 has a "starring role" in De Palma's new film. Another still from the same scene (see below) has also appeared this week at Noomi Rapace Online.
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."
