Simon Killer

He’s been called Michael Haneke’s fore­most Amer­i­can acolyte, and it’s not at all dif­fi­cult to see why. Anto­nio Cam­pos makes films in which peo­ple indulge in extreme self-abase­ment while ignor­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal fall­out their actions might cause. Buy It Now fired a satir­i­cal blun­der­buss at e‑commerce by chart­ing how a young girl sold her vir­gin­i­ty via the inter­net. After­school care­ful­ly riffed on Haneke’s own Benny’s Video, offer­ing a glassy, alien­at­ing por­trait of an scar­i­ly indif­fer­ent school­boy who is slow­ly desen­si­tis­ing him­self to hard sex and violence.

His lat­est, Simon Killer, could almost be seen as a sequel to After­school, as it fol­lows a man who believes he’s a good guy, but is appar­ent­ly blind to the hor­rif­ic con­se­quences of his actions. Brady Cor­bet (who hand­i­ly worked with Haneke on his US remake of Fun­ny Games), plays the epony­mous anti­hero, an angu­lar, nomadic twen­tysome­thing who has escaped to Paris fol­low­ing a tough break-up with his girl­friend. Ini­tial­ly it would appear that he’s made this trip to allow the rela­tion­ship to breathe, with the inten­tion of com­ing home and giv­ing it anoth­er go. But it’s not long before he’s look­ing else­where for his sex­u­al kicks.

Cam­pos pho­tographs Paris with the same sense of chilly detach­ment (and bare­ly audi­bly repul­sion) that he did with the school in After­school. It’s recog­nis­able, but aggres­sive­ly dero­man­ti­cised. Simon ambles past many of the city’s great mon­u­ments and places of inter­est, but he seems unin­ter­est­ed by them. As such, Campos’s cam­era reflects this geo­graph­ic apa­thy by sel­dom zero­ing in on scenery or build­ings. Exte­ri­or shots are often filmed at twi­light and the back­ground often remains out of focus. Simon is not on hol­i­day. His sur­round­ings have lit­tle bear­ing on his emo­tion­al state.

The seeds of Simon’s down­fall are plant­ed when he’s coaxed into a back­street broth­el. He’s instant­ly paired off with Mati Diop’s Vic­to­ria, an escort who knows how to work the emo­tion­al con­tours of her clients. Simon becomes obsessed with Vic­to­ria, or so it seems. He decides that he’s going to put him­self in great per­son­al dan­ger to free her from the shack­les of her pro­fes­sion. And then that omi­nous title starts to gain its mean­ing, offer­ing sug­ges­tions as to why Simon may have been ditched in the first place.

The film is intend­ed as an ambiva­lent char­ac­ter study with a fair­ly unre­mark­able nar­ra­tive that address­es the deep fol­ly of des­per­ate actions which, from cer­tain angles, may appear entire­ly log­i­cal. Yet despite Simon’s clear socio­path­ic ten­den­cies, the film can also be read as study of inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, and the dif­fi­cul­ties of pro­gres­sive inter­ven­tion into the prob­lems suf­fered by those of oth­er races, cul­tures and even genders.

Simon Killer asks, can we tru­ly ever dis­play an act of char­i­ty – can we save a per­son in dire need – with­out some sense of per­son­al enti­tle­ment and self-sat­is­fac­tion? Plus Victoria’s sit­u­a­tion is only neg­a­tive when judged through Simon’s west­ern eyes – did she even require Simon’s aid?

It’s a rich film, but not a par­tic­u­lar­ly plea­sur­able one. It’s nihilis­tic sense of pes­simism at times feels laboured and Simon’s increas­ing­ly bizarre deci­sion-mak­ing process grad­u­al­ly becomes dic­tat­ed by the inex­orable death-spi­ral nar­ra­tive. Cam­pos has tal­ent to burn, and even though this film lacks the squalid sub­tleties of After­school, it’s still makes for a bleak dra­ma about the prac­tice of look­ing for love in all the wrong places.