How Nicolas Winding Refn and Crew Crafted a Modern-Day Giallo With Her Private Hell
From the clothes to the hair, everything is impeccable
A portion of this is available for free subscribers, but the full article is exclusive to my Gold Star Crew members.
🌟Supporters like: Holly Alarcon, Teresa Castner, Scott Phillips, Staskelv, S. David Miller, William Bibbianni, Scott Mendelson, Cameron Curtis, Virginia Yapp, and Don Comm PR💫
Gold Film Mavens can now schedule free consultations with me on Zoom! Looking to get into journalism? Need to learn how to pitch? Want to write a book but don't know the process? Thinking of starting a newsletter? I'll answer whatever expertise I can provide, once a month, for free!
Paid subscribers are the backbone of The Film Maven who support independent journalism, as well as female- and disabled-created content. Paid Film Mavens get access to shout-outs, exclusive articles and series, Zoom mixers, and The Film Maven Discord server.
Nicolas Winding Refn is happy to be "of service" in giving viewers food for thought while watching Her Private Hell. (In this case, he was referring to my mom who I said was still debating the movie after seeing it.) It's understandable considering the bizarre, phantasmagoric nature of the movie itself. The film follows actress Elle (Sophie Thatcher) as she navigates making a movie alongside her former lover/stepmother. There's also a killer known as the Leatherman out there killing women. Does it have anything to do with Elle? Who knows.
Comparisons to a number of films have popped up since Her Private Hell debuted, with many citing a variety of different Italian giallo films and 1950s melodramas. Refn wouldn't commit to naming specific influences but told The Film Maven, "It was more just elements that I found interesting. It was like a fashion magazine that you would swipe through and then see all the things that you would desire."
"I think great filmmakers kind of create a space that you can completely immerse yourself in, where the unreality of what it is becomes the reality," says Charles Melton, who plays Private K. "So many things just informed this living organism from beginning to end. The reference was no reference. It was Nick."
