Piercing (2018)
(On Cable TV, July 2020) Maybe Piercing is about a man with an urge for serial killing. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe he leaves for a “business trip” and checks himself into a hotel to hire a prostitute he intends to kill. Maybe it’s not important that a hotel would be a terrible place (logistically speaking) for that kind of thing. Maybe Ryū Murakami’s novel, from which this is adapted, makes more sense. Maybe he tries to kill her, except it goes wrong and now he’s got to go to the hospital with her. Maybe writer-director Nicolas Pesce knows what he’s doing. Maybe the prostitute comes back to him with a plan of her own. Maybe the obvious use of miniatures and unreal sets feeds into the film’s strong visual style. Maybe both leads have a long conversation in which it’s not clear whether sex or death or food is on the menu. Maybe Mia Wasikowska does better than Christopher Abbott in a role within a minimal cast. Maybe the strong sense of exploitation filmmaking begins before the opening credits with pseudo-VHS effects and a 1970s-inspired credit sequence. Maybe he eventually decides to kill her. Maybe the giallo soundtrack points to this being a dark thriller dipping in horror from time to time. Maybe the characters are so spectacularly abnormal that it’s useless to hope for anything approaching traditional characterization. Maybe Piercing is a style exercise where the narrative can be fun to follow through its initial twists and turns but eventually flops upon itself by not leading anywhere and not being all that interesting. Maybe.