Piercing (Review)

A promising exploitation flick based on a novel of the same name by Ryu Murakami (of Audition fame). It’s a decently nasty little film where a man (Christopher Abbott) decides to kill a sex worker, as per a meticulous plan, and then everything falls apart when he seemingly meets his match (Mia Wasikowska). What follows is, at its best, a Cronenbergian, psycho-sexual game of cat and mouse. Power dynamics flip in interesting ways and motivations blur. At its worst, it’s an under baked riff on Audition that lacks that film’s visceral satire (and clever genre deconstruction – in fact, where Audition tears apart, this feels like a slave to genre).

Throughout its short runtime, Piercing aims to wrong foot its viewer, but never really works out to what end. The need to twist and surprise is initially delightful but culminates in an unsatisfactory feeling that the filmmaker isn’t sure where to take things. The film toys with nastiness, nicely ratcheting up to the promise of an Audition style final act… But then never quite makes it, backing away to once again subvert expectation. This gives it more identity, and is testament to its ability to play with its viewer, but it feels like a film without a thesis statement or insight. It exists purely as homage and trickery. It’s fun, and funny, but doesn’t feel fully formed. It is also somewhat mild: there are a couple of boundary pushing scenes but each one is weakened by a lack of context; it’s extreme, but sporadically so in a way that means it never gets under your skin. You’re too busy divining why the current thing is happening to be effectively repulsed by it.

The overall presentation, though, is wonderful. The film wears a giallo aesthetic, overtly aping the style of Argento and Bava. The content doesn’t feel giallo (again, think Cronenberg meets Miike) but the inflection works, and is heightened by lifting two iconic themes in key sequences (Goblin’s themes to Deep Red and Tenebrae). The heightened, and expressionistic, unreality of the giallo genre matches the tone of this film nicely: reality feels displaced and this makes the quirky psychopaths at the centre work in spite of (and perhaps because of) a lack of cohesive or coherent motivation. However, so clearly aping a beloved style (especially in regard to recycling the themes of genre classics) does remind you how good the heights of giallo are… And how this isn’t that.

Overall, a nice little slice of extreme cinema that will appeal to people who recognise (and have a fondness for) the references in this review. However, it doesn’t go far enough and pulls too many of its punches. The short runtime is a boon to the pacing but I was left wanting it to be long enough for the gloves to really come off.