MovieChat Forums > Elle (2016) Discussion > If she was upset at being attacked in he...

If she was upset at being attacked in her own home...


I'm not buying for one second that a rich (and quite petite) woman living alone who was attacked in her own home wouldn't have installed some kind of alarm system, security cameras and/or lights that turn on with motion detectors. I mean, why would she go to the trouble of buying the pepper spray and the mini axe as well as taking shooting lessons if she wasn't going to do the most obvious thing to get some security? If she had an alarm system in place the rapist might have been caught when he visited her bedroom. She obviously felt scared because she bought those things to protect herself and slept holding the hammer for protection.

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Bump. This still annoys me probably more than it should.

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Absolutely. But Verhoeven likes to fetishise that females like to be raped and aggressed and abused by males. So if she'd prevented this, he'd have no film.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

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She had glass doors, too.

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It does seem a little like that. I personally thought this was such an obvious thing that it almost ruined the whole film for me.

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A major aspect of the character seemed to be that on a certain level, danger (or the potential for it) thrilled her.

| Fools rush in -- and get all the best seats. |

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Liked? NO-ONE likes being the victim of rape in any way, isn't there a reason many people consider it worse than murder let alone as something that is acceptable? (Its still a very good film though.)

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Unless you want to perhaps state that reality and morality are complex and complicated, rather than universal and simple, and that both in terms of feelings and in terms of how and if its possible to punish offenders, there are different levels of rape and it affects victims differently, even if generally it is still horrible and wrong and in over 90% of cases, incredibly destructive, and in this day and age particularly of internet, it is also an incredibly SENSITIVE ISSUE, more so than murder, other acts of violence and poverty and wars themselves.

P.S. According to the director Paul Verhoeven, he actually wanted to make this movie almost like an anti-thesis to an American movie dealing with such subjects, mostly how, unlike the I Spit on Your Grave movies, the character doesn't get revenge nor is rape the center piece of the story, even if he STILL states that it is portrayed as wrong and terrible and even, spoiler alert, the perpetrator DOES get some comeuppance at the end albeit in a different to usual manner.

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Lots of studies around show that being raped is a very popular fantasy for women. So it's not black and white, probably our deep genes against our brain/society standards.

The main character didn't like to be assaulted without her consent but she nonetheless clearly enjoyed it partially (her moaning and eyes/mouth gestual confirms this). She also refused society standards by not being a victim, though she could not accept someone to impose his will on her.

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She didn't want to involve the police, this would only bring the press to warm up the story of a 10 year old girl as a assistant of a mass killer. She rather wants to be strong and independent and able to protect herself.

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