Paul Verhoeven Talks ‘Elle’ [Interview]

Full interview can be found HERE

Excerpts from my Cannes review:

"Since 2006’s “Black Book,” 77 year-old Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven has virtually disappeared from the movie scene. Aside from the experimental “Tricked” in 2012, the director has kept a low-key profile, and there were some rumors that he had retired, and yet he was very much active, trying to get projects made, but struggling to raise money for them."

"Isabelle Huppert leads his latest film playing Michelle, the head of a successful video game company and recent victim of a violent rape. The fact that Michelle responds to the incident with such disturbing indifference makes the people around her, including her perpetrator, bewildered. She is disembodied, unfriendly, and robotic to the situation. The 63 year-old Huppert gives a powerhouse, revelatory performance in the picture."

"To explore unknown territories is what  Verhoeven has been doing for over five decades. This is a man who’s been pushing not only himself, but his audiences to the most provocative and illicitly fascinating cinematic worlds imaginable. “Elle” is another example of the button pushing morality that has infused his classic films. There’s sex, violence, sadism and yet, it all comes together to set its main protagonist free from the shackles of the world she lives in. Is there anything more Verhoeven-esque than that?"