The dangerous and disquieting allure of evil lies at the centre of Pascal Plante’s cool and deliberate new thriller, Red Rooms.
The film debuted as part of the Crystal Globe Competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and should find itself going on to unnerve audiences elsewhere with its depiction of a young woman who is apparently infatuated with a man accused of a series of grisly murders of young girls. Potentially one that will be divisive both for the general subject matter and its ambiguous finale, it is nonetheless an excellent stomach-churner that burrows deep beneath the skin.
The film begins with the first morning of an already infamous murder trial, where Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) stands accused of the torture and murder of three young women, all of which were recorded and broadcast on the dark web in the ‘red rooms’ of the title. In attendance in the courtroom, sitting in the public gallery, is Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy). As the opening remarks are made and we hear the extent of the alleged crimes, the camera gradually creeps in on Kelly-Anne’s face, as she stares fixedly and emotionlessly at Chevaliler. Returning to the courtroom every day – Kelly-Anne’s income derives from sporadic modelling gigs and a penchant for online poker – she soon becomes acquainted with another young woman in regular attendance, Clementine (Laurie Babin). Where Clementine is clearly an ardent believer in Chevalier’s innocence, Kelly-Anne seems to be less convinced, and thus question persists as to why she is there.
Actually reading Kelly-Anne’s motivations is nigh on impossible. Apart from in a few key scenes, she remains inscrutable – a character onto whom the audience, and other people within the world of the film, project their own visions and assumptions. Gariépy does a fine job of handling this task, making sure that Kelly-Anne’s fascination is never in doubt – the subtle flicker as her eyes widen in some intangible form of excitement is a recurring visual beat – but the impulses behind it remind obscured. There are instances in which her air of detachment becomes menacing: in one sequence she matter-of-factly uses the dark web to hack into the emails and WiFi of one of the victims’ parents, before minimising a picture of the murdered girl to load up a workout video on YouTube. A later sequence sees Kelly-Anne walk into the courtroom wearing what is effectively victim cosplay – a blonde wig, contact lenses, false braces on her teeth and a school uniform to resemble the three girls – and it is absolutely chilling.
The visuals are equally cool and calculated. Vincent Biron shoots primarily in cold or muted colours, finding visual interest in the reflections of Montreal’s city lights on the glass of broad windows in Kelly-Anne’s high-rise apartment or washes of saturation in the reds and blues reflected on her face by her computer screens. These choices feel as though they’ve been made to inhabit the world as seen by the protagonist – “money is just numbers inside a computer,” she tells Clementine at one point, “I’m not bad with numbers.” Even the courtroom itself is excessively modern and sleekly designed, as if it was the backdrop of a fashion magazine shoot.
What all this means for the veracity of what we see remains unclear and later scenes play with the potential of slippages between what is real and what is fantasy. Her continued attendance at the trial begins to have real-world implications, but Kelly-Anne seems further and further removed from such concerns. There are various references to Arthurian legend – particularly in Kelly-Anne’s electronic assistant being named Guenièvre and her dark web username being LadyofShallott. The fact that the defendant’s name is ‘chevalier’, which can be translated as ‘knight’ feels pertinent, and there are passages where it feels as though Red Rooms is observing the unravelling of some twisted fairy tale, at least from Kelly-Anne’s perspective.
One of the most contentious elements of Red Rooms may well be its final act in which Kelly-Anne begins attempting to track down the third of the red room videos on the dark web – only two have been found and submitted as evidence in the trial. There are various ways that the ending can be read, and Plante intentionally leaves things highly ambiguously to prompt further debate. What it also does is means that the uncomfortable atmosphere of the film doesn’t abate, giving it the ability to linger long beneath the skin.
Director, screenplay: Pascal Plante
Cast: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Producer: Dominique Dussault
Cinematography: Vincent Biron
Editing: Jonah Malak
Music: Dominique Plante
Sound: Martyne Morin, Olivier Calvert, Stéphane Bergeron
Art Director: Laura Nhem
Production companies: Nemesis Films (Canada)
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Crystal Globe)
In French, English
118 minutes
