By Olyver LaGabed, Staff Writer
In this world, there is good and there is bad. There are good days, bad days; good foods, bad foods; everything comes in pairs in our world. With good there must always be bad to contrast and complement, and with the amount of amazing films that were released into theaters this summer, it’s no surprise that a movie quite as awful as Her Private Hell exists.
Her Private Hell, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (who is also known for directing The Neon Demon), is… a movie that’s hard to describe. This isn’t due to any level of genius or nuance and it’s certainly not because it’s the kind of movie that takes a watch or two to get. No, Her Private Hell is hard to describe because there is simply no substance, no point, and generally speaking, nothing good about this film.
When going into writing and directing Her Private Hell, Refn had been going for a kind of old-fashioned, Italian-horror look and feel to the whole thing. To his credit, Refn succeeded in that venture – the movie has this “Blade Runner meets The Godfather” feel to it that’s hard to do justice through written word – that is to say, this movie is very visually stunning and definitely nice to look at… but otherwise, there isn’t much to talk about. Well, that’s a lie; there’s just not much good to talk about.
Believe me, dear reader, I’m a journalist before I’m anything else. I’d love to write an overview of every good and bad aspect of this film. As a journalist, though, it is also my responsibility to be honest, and in all honesty, I’m not even sure what the plot of this movie was trying to be. See, the issue with this movie is that it wanted to be both an in-depth exploration of what female suffering can look like in the world of human trafficking and a cheesy action movie centering around the success story of a man. In going for both of these wildly contradictory viewpoints, the film overshadows itself.
As I mentioned before, this movie tries very hard to discuss nuanced topics such as assault and human trafficking. It wants to be a movie that deals heavily in themes of self-respect and privilege, but because of the way that Refn chose to write the women in this film, that theme falls flat on its face. Despite every instance of human suffering that the women in this movie face, they are beautiful. Despite every traumatic occurrence, despite every violent instance, not once do we ever see the women here depicted as anything other than desirable. Not once does the audience see a woman who is broken – not once are we shown a woman who is angered by the lack of autonomy she has in this world that the director created.
In showcasing this lack of nuance, the director paints a very clear picture of the misunderstanding he has towards what he thinks female suffering looks like. According to his movie, he seems to see female suffering as this tantalizing topic – one that’s beautiful and alluring – when the reality is that female suffering is exactly the same as any other kind of suffering, and it should be treated as such.
I’m not the only person who watched this movie, though. Sure, everyone else in my row hated it, and the film was only actually in theaters for around a week, but there are a slew of individuals who genuinely enjoyed this movie. Personally, however, I find what user Aurore had to say far more interesting and accurate to the viewing experience: “male directors should stop watching porn right now.” At best, Her Private Hell comes off as shallow – at worst, it’s just the director’s poorly disguised fetish.
