RECURRING MOTIF "RESTORES THE FRESH TOMATO TO ITS NOW-PERVERTED ESSENCE"
One month ago today, after my initial viewing of Brian De Palma's Domino, I noted that the film "is full of tomatoes. They're all over the place in this movie, and you have to think that De Palma would have had Rotten Tomatoes in the back of his mind as he thought of and shot Domino." Today, John Demetry shared a few words on Twitter about Domino and its recurring tomato motif, as well as some thoughts about Carice van Houten:
DOMINO is Brian De Palma’s “Fuck You” to #RottenTomatoes, one of many social media trends in De Palma’s cross-hairs. Through a recurring motif, he restores the Fresh Tomato to its now-perverted essence. To paraphrase Godard: Tomato is “red.” Did anyone else clock the first tomato in De Palma’s DOMINO? It imbues the fruit, the ripe red, with connotations of desire and guilt that motivates—and connects—the film’s expressionist panoply of law enforcers, vigilante revengers, and global terrorism actors. The rogues gallery of #FakeNews hacks and cyber-climbers aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes commits a form of cultural terrorism by dismissing De Palma’s vitality and reducing criticism and cinema to produce. The middle finger is mightier than the thumb.Much to say. But nobody is paying me to say it.
Example: Ever since Verhoeven’s BLACK BOOK (and then her daring portrayal in RACE), I have wanted De Palma to cast Carice van Houten. She imbues the role here with complex feeling, disturbing the spectator’s response to her capacity for action. She aims her righteous right-leg kicks for the testes (“Therapy,” she jokes) and her gun for single-minded vengeance, always registering the moral implications with Adjani-like imminence, even when crossing paths with the woman she betrayed.
It’s a beautiful film—now available on iTunes.