Directed by:
Pascal PlanteScreenplay:
Pascal PlanteCinematography:
Vincent BironComposer:
Dominique PlanteCast:
Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Charlotte Aubin, Guy Thauvette, Frédérick De Grandpré, Sebastien Beaulac, Pierre Chagnon (more)Plots(1)
The day Kelly-Anne has been waiting for has arrived. The trial begins for Ludovic Chevalier, accused of the brutal murder of three underage girls. Unlike most people, Kelly-Anne is fascinated by the man, she becomes obsessed with him and attends every single court hearing in the hope he’ll give her at least a fleeting glance. The border between reality and fantasy starts to blur, however, until Kelly-Anne ceases to be a mere passive observer. Pascal Plante once again expresses an interest in female subjectivity, nevertheless, this time he has come up with an arthouse thriller about the perilous attraction of evil. At the same time, the interplay between what we can and can’t see, and what is explicit and what is conjecture, develops into an almost physical viewing experience. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)
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Reviews (5)
An artsy court thriller from Canada! The trial begins for Ludovic Chevalier, who has been convicted of the murders of three young girls, which the sales of snuff videos on the Dark Web, definitely an interesting court case. We watch the film from the point of view of a model-juror who becomes obsessed with the case and starts to be a pretty decent psycho. The courtroom verbal barrages are fine and definitely go a long way to fixing the taste for the awful Anatomy of a Fall, though I wish there was more of the trial. At times the film focuses on stuff that isn't entirely appealing. I loved the conversation of the Dark Web expert, and the ending is captivating with an intense and thrilling poker game with Bitcoins that is one of the highlights of the entire film. It's a shame the snuff scenes are out of focus, but I can see how it wouldn't pass. It probably could have been made darker and more intense, but I'm still happy with this understated thriller, it's definitely worth a watch, but it's not a genre-defining film. 7/10.
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Random notes about the dark net, groupies and serial killers mixed haphazardly with the superficial motif of “outwardly beautiful but inwardly monstrous model living in a clinically clean apartment with AI that tells jokes”. The film, which confuses outward effects with profound psychology, unintentionally gives a nod of approval to tabloid fascination with violence and insight into the pathological world with the eclectic alternation of themes, about which it says nothing at all. An empty gesture, horror vacui.
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What fascinates people about serial killers and does close examination of evil also breed evil? The answers to these questions are (not necessarily) given to us through the two female protagonists, whose psychology alternates between childlike naivety and almost devilish mystery and ambiguity. This hypnotic, audiovisually intoxicating thriller about the fascination with human brutality is a powerful genre piece, the likes of which don't make it very often into the competition section at Karlovy Vary. Some scenes (especially the cosplay in the courtroom) are masterfully constructed and I would actually like to watch the whole thing again very soon. [KVIFF 2023]
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This attractive attempt at an arthouse thriller resulted only in a tabloidish, formalistically incongruous and psychologically unconvincing treatise on the attractiveness of evil and a number of other topics, which it addresses in an exceedingly superficial way. If one of those topics was intended to be a critique of overtly biased and emotionally manipulative courts, then it was not a fortunate decision to conceive it from the perspective of an antisocial and bizarrely motivated protagonist who is fascinated by deviance.
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Red Rooms explores the bleak world of snuff-video distribution on the dark web and the trial of the murderer of three girls who filmed his macabre “work”. However, it doesn’t properly develop either of these storylines and spends most of the time on the short-term friendship between two strange girls who attend the trial as spectators because they are fascinated with the killer. I don’t understand the enthusiastic response that the film received. It’s true that it is shot with precision and is well acted, but in terms of content, it absolutely squanders the potential of its powerful subject matter. [Sitges Film Festival]
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