Nicolas Winding Refn returned to Cannes with “Her Private Hell” and continued his festival hot streak of dividing audiences. The provocateur’s latest feature is headlined by “Yellowjackets” and “Companion” star Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, the “Riverdale” actor who redefined his career at Cannes when Todd Haynes’ “May December” premiered in 2023.
The late-night screening was preceded by a dose of pouring rain as Refn and his stars made their way into the Palais. As the credits rolled and the audience broke out into applause, lead Thatcher burst into tears as Refn paced back and forth, hyping up the crowd for the 7-minute ovation.
As the applause finally died down, Refn took the microphone to share why this film was intensely personal. The filmmaker revealed that a few years ago, he’d died for 25 minutes and had to be resuscitated. “That changes you, when I was brought back by electricity,” Refn said. “Now that I’m alive again, I only have 25 years left of my life to live. But I’m going to make damn use of that to live life to the fullest.”
The crowd cheered loudly as he continued, “To make this film again and to be back here at Cannes, where I came from, is a huge step for mankind. And I am here to lead the torch but it’s not just me.” Despite the grave nature of that revelation, Refn couldn’t stay somber for long and quickly pivoted into a bit about Melton’s sexy body and the hot bodies of all his cast, which are on full display in the film.
Refn concluded his remarks with a treatise on the power of cinema in an age when “all the politicans have fucked up the world and blown [up] all the countries and stolen our money, the only thing left is art.”
“Now that everything is so unequal and everyone is fighting and yelling at each other,” Refn went on, “the only thing that brings us together is going to the movies and sit together and seeing the movies.”
The director made it clear he’s not complaining about watching movies on an iPhone — even he does that — but, he explained, “cinema is about coming together for a collective experience, which is what human beings do and at the end we’re just human beings.” For his final thought, Refn seemingly referenced his own harrowing health crisis and declared: “This is year 1, day 1. Cinema is the future, cinema is alive. It’s resurrected.”
A neon-tinted fever dream, “Her Private Hell” stars Thatcher as a tortured movie star who must confront her daddy issues when her best friend marries her father. At the same time, a mysterious presence, known only as The Leather Man, is going on a killing spree of young women who shout “Daddy!” before being ripped open. Melton plays an Army private whose own daughter goes missing and embarks to find vengeance and kill the Leather Man.
Refn’s supporting cast includes Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada and Hidetoshi Nishijima. The movie is backed by Neon, which has notably won Cannes’ Palme d’Or every year since 2019’s “Parasite” victory. “Her Private Hell” is not eligible for awards as it premiered out of competition, but Neon still has a handful of contenders such as “Hope,” “Fjord” and more.
Cannes has now been Refn’s festival home for his last four movies, including “Her Private Hell.” The Danish filmmaker electrified Cannes in 2011 with “Drive,” which won him the best director prize. But follow-up projects “Only God Forgives” (2013) and “The Neon Demon” (2016) proved far more polarizing and sharply divided audiences, with reactions to “The Neon Demon” ranging from boos to walkouts and people yelling at the screen in outrage. “Her Private Hell” marks Refn’s first feature in the 10 years since “The Neon Demon.” Refn pivoted to television in the interim with the series “Too Old to Die Young” (2019″ and “Copenhagen Cowboy” (2023).
“Her Private Hell” will open in U.S. theaters on July 24.
