Dangerous Desire - DVD

Content: His last success was some time ago and also his latest work just does not want to get going. Screenwriter and writer Martin (Sebastian Koch) has truly seen better days. But he has managed to finally get his life back on track after the mysterious disappearance of his wife 15 years ago. But when he meets the seductive Frenchwoman Angelique (Lotte Verbeek) at the 25th birthday party of his daughter, the aspiring actress Sarah (Rebecca Night), this order is abruptly destroyed. For the next day the young woman is found dead in the Thames. Although Martin is not the direct suspect, the investigating detective Bullock (Kenneth Cranham) sees parallels to the disappearance of Martin's wife. When Angelique's twin sister Therese also turns up in London, Martin finds himself caught in a dangerous maelstrom of seduction, lies and deceit...

With Dangerous Desire, two-time Oscar-nominated director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) attempts to present an erotically tinged thriller that blurs the lines between fiction and reality. To achieve this, Figgis applies the rules of screenwriting, which he visibly integrates directly into the picture for the viewer. Character descriptions and script directions then appear in the picture, or split screen and other effects are applied. For example, the scene in which Martin flies to France to learn more about Therese is cut short by a script excerpt read aloud. Instead of showing everything, the viewer then gets something like montage. A jet takes off, lands in France. Martin hires a car to listen.

So Figgis keeps the viewer guessing whether he's following Martin's latest script or actual events from his life right now. It's an exciting and unusual approach, and one that will keep the film of great interest, at least to viewers who are open to unusual forms of storytelling. But especially in the second half of the film it becomes clear again and again that Martin seems to trip himself up with his high ambitions. After all, when Martin begins by explaining to his students, to whom he is trying to teach the fine art of screenwriting, that the audience is owed a good ending after an interesting beginning, one expects this all the more from a film that relies so heavily on playing with cinematic rules.

But unfortunately Figgis loses himself more and more in the convoluted story, whose structure is simply more interesting than its resolution. Moreover, on a purely visual level, one is left with the feeling that the director's ambitions were simply too high for the small budget he had at his disposal. The good actors can only slightly compensate for this shortcoming, which is why Dangerous Desire, despite good ideas and an interesting initial situation, is unfortunately only worth seeing for lovers of rather experimental arthouse cinema.

Picture + Sound: The picture has a slightly undercooled look, but it absolutely does justice to the atmosphere of the story. Otherwise, coloring, image sharpness or even contrasts are consistently on a decent level, but in all areas would have been qualitatively still clearly air to the top. This also applies to the sound, which presents itself as a whole very unexciting. However, this is absolutely appropriate in view of the rather of a subliminal menace filled staging, which is why there is also a satisfied good overall for the technical implementation!

Extras: As a bonus there is only the trailer and other program tips of the provider.

Conclusion: With Dangerous Desire, Oscar-nominated director Mike Figgis tries his hand at an erotically charged thriller that continually blends the layers of fiction and reality. This has interesting and also effective aspects, but could have done with a better and more exciting script, especially in the second half. As it is, it only suffices for a somewhat unwieldy film noir that exploits its very good basic idea far too little. The good actors and the play with the different levels make the work despite its lengths and dramaturgical hangs nevertheless straight for film-interested and lovers of experimental Arthauskino absolutely still worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp