It's been accused of being a cold study in sterile eroticism, a completely passionless love story, and a rip-off of LAST TANGO IN Paris. Whatever it is, Louis Malle's movie DAMAGE is an unforgettable experience that takes the viewer into a story of cloying obsession that spins out of control and literally "damages" every player in the movie.
The story is simple. Dr. Stephen Fleming meets his son Martyn's fiancée Anna Barton during a social gathering and from the moment they lock eyes on each other, Stephen feels his own world start to crumble. (A quiet scene in which Jeremy Irons stands in his living room surveying his Architectural Digest house, looking completely bored, is telling.) He receives a phone call. It's Anna. She, interestingly enough, wants to meet him. He goes to see her, and finds her sitting in a chair, regarding him with haunted eyes. From then on, they embark in an affair that is supposed to be torrid but comes off as increasingly disturbing -- indeed, the camera has them at one point making love while covering their eyes, as if they were practising some mechanic erotic session. It's art directed within an inch of its life, and that makes it more unsettling.
Anna, in the meantime, has let Stephen know that she will not leave his son, and that she is damaged: hence the title. Of course, a man of Stephen's stature would know better even when Anna's mother (Leslie Caron) drops by and hints that maybe it's best that he not pursue Anna. However, a man in lust can't be dissuaded that simply, but neither can a woman whose motives for pursuing a relationship with her fiancée's father seems to be out of the need to get caught at one point.
When it happens, it has the deadly silence of time standing still. Martyn effectively because a sacrificial lamb to the pair's illicit love affair, and this has more repercussions as it finally smashes the crystal ball the Fleming's household always was. Miranda Richardson, as Ingrid Fleming, explodes in a moment of rage so raw she practically bleeds out of the movie's frame. She makes you despise Stephen. It's a moment that truly elevates the movie from its soap origins and plunges it into a void where there is no escape.
DAMAGE has the luminous and haunting presence of Juliette Binoche in a role tailor made for her. With those deep, dark eyes, the alabaster skin, and that cold beauty, she conveys her character's dysfunction only in hints here and there, and is a precursor to what she would further in the character she played in TROIS COULEURS: BLEU. I can understand why a man like Stephem Fleming would have fallen so hard for her to a point where he is literally ill at the thought of not having her. Irons, too, is excellent as Stephen -- his chiseled features play well with his character's hunger for something else than routine.
The story is simple. Dr. Stephen Fleming meets his son Martyn's fiancée Anna Barton during a social gathering and from the moment they lock eyes on each other, Stephen feels his own world start to crumble. (A quiet scene in which Jeremy Irons stands in his living room surveying his Architectural Digest house, looking completely bored, is telling.) He receives a phone call. It's Anna. She, interestingly enough, wants to meet him. He goes to see her, and finds her sitting in a chair, regarding him with haunted eyes. From then on, they embark in an affair that is supposed to be torrid but comes off as increasingly disturbing -- indeed, the camera has them at one point making love while covering their eyes, as if they were practising some mechanic erotic session. It's art directed within an inch of its life, and that makes it more unsettling.
Anna, in the meantime, has let Stephen know that she will not leave his son, and that she is damaged: hence the title. Of course, a man of Stephen's stature would know better even when Anna's mother (Leslie Caron) drops by and hints that maybe it's best that he not pursue Anna. However, a man in lust can't be dissuaded that simply, but neither can a woman whose motives for pursuing a relationship with her fiancée's father seems to be out of the need to get caught at one point.
When it happens, it has the deadly silence of time standing still. Martyn effectively because a sacrificial lamb to the pair's illicit love affair, and this has more repercussions as it finally smashes the crystal ball the Fleming's household always was. Miranda Richardson, as Ingrid Fleming, explodes in a moment of rage so raw she practically bleeds out of the movie's frame. She makes you despise Stephen. It's a moment that truly elevates the movie from its soap origins and plunges it into a void where there is no escape.
DAMAGE has the luminous and haunting presence of Juliette Binoche in a role tailor made for her. With those deep, dark eyes, the alabaster skin, and that cold beauty, she conveys her character's dysfunction only in hints here and there, and is a precursor to what she would further in the character she played in TROIS COULEURS: BLEU. I can understand why a man like Stephem Fleming would have fallen so hard for her to a point where he is literally ill at the thought of not having her. Irons, too, is excellent as Stephen -- his chiseled features play well with his character's hunger for something else than routine.