Pierc­ing

Based on a nov­el of the same name by Ryū Muraka­mi (the author behind Takashi Miike’s Audi­tion), the sec­ond fea­ture from Nico­las Pesce plays with the lim­its of con­trol. The film’s man­nered, min­i­mal visu­al style and tidy set design echo our main character’s steely resolve: Reed (Christo­pher Abbott) has put togeth­er a pre­cise plan to dis­pas­sion­ate­ly call and mur­der a pros­ti­tute in a hotel room.

The cal­cu­lat­ed way in which he spreads his tools on the bed and rehears­es the mur­der makes the neat­ness of his appear­ance look more a sign of mad­ness than of sta­bil­i­ty. But, of course, as soon as the intend­ed vic­tim Jack­ie (Mia Wasikows­ka) shows up, noth­ing goes accord­ing to plan. Reed had not con­sid­ered that his prey might be just as deranged as he is.

Their game of cat and mouse is gen­uine­ly sur­pris­ing and unset­tling, mer­ri­ly going into tru­ly uncom­fort­able body hor­ror. But there are touch­es of humour here, too – in Wasikowska’s broad per­for­mance, and most enjoy­ably in Abbott’s sub­tle looks and deliv­ery. His entire body seems imbued with the his­to­ry of Reed, whose child­hood trau­ma and root of his mad­ness is pro­gres­sive­ly, elu­sive­ly revealed. Jackie’s own rea­son for her affin­i­ty with (self-)mutilation is nev­er dis­cussed, but her reac­tion to Reed’s sto­ry del­i­cate­ly reveals a tac­it under­stand­ing, even a degree of empathy.

The arti­fi­cial city of colour­ful tow­er blocks where the film is set sug­gests a sti­fling soci­ety where neu­roses of all kinds must thrive. Per­haps the most obvi­ous sign of a civil­i­sa­tion bub­bling with vio­lent impuls­es is in the film’s sound­track, com­posed exclu­sive­ly of themes from gial­lo films such as Dario Argento’s Tene­bre. But the cham­ber piece ulti­mate­ly feels a lit­tle too slight and shifty to jus­ti­fy its run­time. End­ing just as its long-teased crescen­do of rec­i­p­ro­cal mad­ness begins, Pierc­ing is a lit­tle too smart for its own good.