Demonlover

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Demonlover is a 2002 film by French writer/director Olivier Assayas. The film stars Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny, and Gina Gershon with a musical score by Sonic Youth. It premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, although it was more widely released several months later. Reviews were decidedly mixed: the website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 47% rating.

The film defies easy placement into a single cinematic category, but it is usually considered a drama with many elements of the mystery and espionage genres. Upon its theatrical release in the United States, it was rated R for strong violence, sexual content and some language. It was released in both R-rated and unrated director's cut versions on DVD.

The flim is primarily in the French language with some scenes in English and some in Japanese.

1 Plot
2 Alternate Versions
3 Miscellanea
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Diane de Monx (Nielsen) is an executive trying to neogtiate a deal to acquire the popular hentai website "Demonlover" for the Volf Corporation. To facilitate the acquisition, she eliminates her superior, Karen (Dominique Reymond), and assumes control of her portfolio, her business partner Hervé (Berling), and her assistant Elise (Sevigny). Elise, however, despises Diane and works to frustrate her negotiations at every opportunity.

The deal eventually comes close to completion, but soon an American firm represented by Elaine Si Gibril (Gershon) also tries to acquire rights to Demonlover's content. Diane, however, has discovered that Elaine's company is also the front for a website called the Hellfire Club, an interactive site dealing with extreme sadomasochism and torture broadcast in realtime. When Diane tries to eliminate Elaine from the competition for Demonlover, things begin to take a dramatic turn. Soon everybody's ulterior motives and secret desires come rushing to the surface, and Diane finds herself lost in a web of intrigue.

[edit] Alternate Versions

Assayas has claimed that he trimmed at least 10 minutes of footage out of the film after its premiere at Cannes. The film was further edited for release in the United States to obtain in an R rating due to the highly explicit and sexual nature of some of the scenes. Additionally, this R-rated release featured heavy pixelization over the hentai scenes shown from the fictitious Demonlover website.

When the film was released on Region 1 DVD on March 16, 2004, it was in this R-rated cut. Several months later, a 2-disc "unrated director's cut" appeared. This cut removed most of the hentai pixelization (although penetration scenes are still blurred) and restored some scenes of footage from the Hellfire Club website. As a bonus feature on the 2-disc edition, a secret code (found in the text printed on the DVD itself) can be entered to gain access to the unedited Hellfire Club footage.

Internet rumors indicated that a third DVD edition of the film would be released, this one featuring the original Cannes cut of the film and without any scenes pixelized, but this has so far failed to materialize.