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Her Private Hell is a Self-Satisfied, Stunning Slog

It’s difficult to say exactly what is going on at any given point in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell except that it is quite intoxicating to look at but also quite slow and obtuse. It is Refn’s first movie in ten years, his last being the equally strange arthouse horror film The Neon Demon, yet this film seems even less attached to narrative, character, or context, motivated almost entirely by mood, vibes, messy themes and messier sexuality. As a result it feels to me like a less coherent, less entertaining Lost Highway -which is not a favourite David Lynch of mine but I do have a respect for its metaphors and how it comes together. Her Private Hell does not really -I wonder how much Refn himself can make of its fragments of unfiltered psychology. But it can be called a unique and fascinating film -the preferable form of disappointing movie, for its conceptions and pretentious eccentricities.
The title in any case is quite accurate, as Sophie Thatcher’s Elle seems relatively uncomfortable for a large chunk of the movie. She is the actress daughter of Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott) who appears to be an influential pimp and cult leader constantly luring young women to his sphere of influence including Elle’s close friend Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), who is now her step-mom. Elle and Dominique and a new naive young actress Hunter (Kristine Froseth) are all working on a sci-fi movie based on a popular comic book -though the world they exist in is some grimly futuristic approximation of industrial Japan, where high rises jut out above the clouds or smog of a dark and unpredictably violent world below where police Private Kay (Charles Melton) seeks out a dubiously tangible killer called The Leatherman who abducted his daughter.
Refn has been known for a somewhat inflated opinion of himself and his work, which he has equated to that of great auteurs. This movie reveals that on one point at least he is suitably comparable to the likes of Fellini, Hitchcock, Bertolucci, Rohmer, and Kubrick, and that is in the exposure -consciously or not- of his particular sexual interests and compulsions. This is a very horny movie, especially in the scenes involving Elle, Dominique, and Hunter, where the mood, lighting, costuming, and performance choices  drip with erotic fervour even where topics of conversation don’t concern anything tangentially sexual. But there is a lot there that is openly sexual -Johnny’s Hugh Hefner-style persona, the sultry way he is referred to in absentia as “Daddy”, and the various intimate overtures between the women in Elle’s penthouse -suggestions of seductive bedroom activity and the like. A lot of this is mere tease as Refn unconvincingly plays things as innocent where a climax might occur -on just one late occasion does he actually follow through with an action that removes doubt around some of the sexual tension. But it is still nebulous in how unusually charged much of it is -from virtually all the characters in Elle’s section of the story. And one can’t help but read something into particular choices that Refn makes in illustrating this: the seductive slowness of a lot of these interactions and the style of certain line-reads -particularly from Thatcher and Froseth, as well as the physical closeness between characters and very explicit undercurrent to their talk about each other and ‘Daddy’ and even the Leatherman. These are frisky, though generally land the right side of lascivious. But then there is the kinky stuff: the naivety and rather immature sexuality of Hunter that rings a little fetishistic, likewise the personality dominance of Dominique, the elaborate make-up the women wear for their movie and the particular piece that Hunter wears for a sexually promising night out with Nico (Diego Calva); and then there’s the barking sequence -supposedly a game Elle and Dominique had together where they would mimic wolves. Why they randomly break out in it I’m sure Refn has a very interesting answer for.
Meanwhile, Private K's world is much more caught up in violence -of the Japanese or Hong Kong crime movie variety. In tracking down whoever kidnapped his daughter his weapon of choice is an elaborate set of brass knuckles with sharpened edges, making for some grisly fight scenes, including one with a sumo wrestler. Stripped of his rank, K goes it alone and almost entirely silent, speaking only brusquely in Korean to suspects, including a mysterious pair of young women connected loosely to Johnny's harem played by Shioli Kutsuna and Aoi Yamada. His boss also shows up a couple times, played by a thoroughly underutilized Hidetoshi Nishijima. This section of the movie is defined by K's brooding and stalking, and Refn's intense photography of Melton's perfectly chiseled though often emotionless face, which in compliment to a heavy but low-cut black coat gives him the appearance of Arnold Schwarzeneggar's Terminator. It's all part of the critical mood Refn sets, and though he does so well, he doesn't endeavour to create much momentum through it. These sequences are often excessively slow -even the fights, which are built to as gradually as possible.
A lot of the film moves at this rate, that is why the pervading sexual content sticks out more than the short beat of brutal murder Elle and Hunter witness in a neighbouring building, despite being more relevant to the plot. It is entirely in service of the mood Refn wishes to convey and the haunting miasma of the world he has created. And in fairness, it is effective in some respects. Refn's visual language is certainly striking -his bold colours and tinted frames, a result of his partial colour-blindness, are eye-popping and gorgeous, especially when paired as is the case here with creative sets and compositions, versatile camerawork, and the aforementioned distinctive make-up. The editing where it is most noteworthy is pulsating, intense in certain sequences, stylistically quite engaging. And even the pacing is rather evocative for a little while in certain contexts where there is other visual stimulation in a scene. But Refn is clearly a little pompous about his aesthetics, and is much too willing to let them turn otherwise engaging material into a slog. Moments that should hit with a punch are dragged out to the point that even an inventive shot or act of violence is tepid. Choices made out of how cool they are have an obnoxious air to them, the movie's artistic flavour crosses over into indulgence.
All of it to facilitate a rather incoherent thesis on heroism and trauma -it can be guessed these are Refn's focal points given the frequent nods to Elle's movie persona, K's brutish actions, and Elle's complicated issues around her dad and attraction to her friend-turned-stepmother (and there is some cruel gaslighting here). But it doesn't congeal into anything interesting or meaningful, much as Refn's style and the overpowering music by Pino Donaggio would indicate. What the Leatherman really is is an open question, and there is some ambiguity ultimately around how reliable Elle's reality even is. Though interrogating that notion even produces little substantive metaphorical catharsis to counteract the movie's irritating dregs.
Her Private Hell is an impressive movie in some worthy respects. The vivid visual language and atmosphere is truly mesmerising at times, when taken apart from the meandering whole. And Refn I think cares mostly about that aspect of the film. But even as a tone poem, this is a wildly uneven thing, and its obtuse qualities feel like snide mockery from Refn himself, who seems to delight in his alienating choices for their own sake. It spoils to at least a certain extent the lasting effect of those attributes. Her Private Hell doesn't have to be ours as well.

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