A real change of direction for French filmmaker Olivier Assayas: following his historical family epic Les Destinées Sentimentales comes this feverish corporate cyber-thriller, its shiny surfaces and luxurious settings concealing troubling questions about our obsession with electronic images and virtual experiences.
A glamorous female cast (Connie Nielsen, Chloë Sevigny, Gina Gershon) play the ultra-chic and ruthlessly ambitious rival business executives. Their trade? Battling for the global distribution rights to the output of a Japanese firm specialising in 3D animated porn. Assayas tears up the conventional storytelling rulebook, embracing an increasingly dreamlike narrative as the characters come to resemble players in their own fantasy-driven videogame. Courageous stuff.
