Downloading Nancy (Johan Renck, 2008)

[domino harvey]

Unrated Trailer
Apparently so many people tried to leave the Sundance screening of this that the producers had to stand in front of the doors. Makes me interested if nothing else, though tonally I can't figure out what exactly this trailer is trying to sell this as

[Svevan]

Holy shit. The trailer is edited as if the sado-masochism of its lead character is perfectly compatible with the cliche genre beats of a modern Hollywood drama. The trailer is pretty much

"Where's my wife"
"You just took my breath away"
"Cut me with a shard of glass"
"Where's my wife"

like you can just sneak it in there without anyone noticing (audience is too busy listening to Brian Eno and Johnny Cash to notice this movie is about self-inflicted torture and murder).

[Cde.]

Film could be interesting, but it has a pretty boring aesthetic. The forced 'muted' colour scheme, and even a lot of shots in that trailer are really worn by now, and not holding up so well. Why does 'lots of digitally faded ultra close up handheld' automatically equal 'indie cred'?

[Oedipax]

This comment on the trailer page made me wince more than the trailer itself:

JV Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:00 am

creepy. and who steals the music from True Romance?

nobody….thats who.

The cult of QT, folks.

And yeah, adding to what Cde. said, why does it seem like a lot of these music video directors gravitate towards the same sort of projects and aesthetics when it comes time to make their feature debut? "Edgy" plotlines, handheld camera, desatured colors... And as for the trailer itself, I hate it when great music becomes just another cinematic cliche, as is abundantly clear from this.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Why does 'lots of digitally faded ultra close up handheld' automatically equal 'indie cred'?

It's called a lack of imagination in all departments aka MTV drama

[Nothing]

This drivel is shot by Chris Doyle, believe it or not.

[Antoine Doinel]

Dave Poland over at his blog sums it up pretty nicely:

Downloading Nancy is one of those films that goes beyond in its pretentious efforts to top some of the worst Sundance bad habits. The "Watch The Well-Known Actress Suffer And Fuck" film (most recently embodied by Sherrybaby) combined with the "If Chris Doyle Shot It, It Must Be Art" film, with a mighty tip of the hat to Hostel 2, this is the very worst kind of festival shit.

[Cde.]

This drivel is shot by Chris Doyle, believe it or not.

I know Chris Doyle personally, so I hate to say this, but maybe people give him a bit too much credit. He has a great visual eye (especially control of colours, though this doesn't show it) for sure, but it really seems that directors have a lot more control over the looks of his features than he does. Which of course should be obvious, but Doyle is always talked about as if he personally creates the camera set ups and colour schemes of the films he works on.

Downloading Nancy is one of those films that goes beyond in its pretentious efforts to top some of the worst Sundance bad habits. The "Watch The Well-Known Actress Suffer And Fuck" film (most recently embodied by Sherrybaby) combined with the "If Chris Doyle Shot It, It Must Be Art" film, with a mighty tip of the hat to Hostel 2, this is the very worst kind of festival shit.

Sounds about right.

You'd hope that a music video director would have a better visual imagination.

[flyonthewall2983]

I must admit that the story is very intriguing to me, but it's pretty obvious now that theatrical release is a distant reality. Which is sad, because this doesn't look half as disturbing as An American Crime. Another reason to hate Juno.

[Antoine Doinel]

I know Chris Doyle personally, so I hate to say this, but maybe people give him a bit too much credit. He has a great visual eye (especially control of colours, though this doesn't show it) for sure, but it really seems that directors have a lot more control over the looks of his features than he does. Which is of course should be obvious, but Doyle is always talked about as if he personally creates the camera set ups and colour schemes of the films he works on.

That doesn't surprise me. I was underwhelmed by his thoroughly dull entry in Paris, Je T'Aime. Visually and narratively it was nothing but terrible.

And I finally watched the trailer for this thing when I got home and it just seems off as a crappy mix between Secretary and Alexandra's Project. For me, the trailer jumped the shark with Jason Patric's orgasmic laughing while being beaten on the couch. And oh yeah, can that trailer give anything more away? I'm assuming the plot will run something like this: Woman meets man on internet. Leaves husband. Internet man and woman begin passionate/violent affair. Internet man kills woman. Husband kills internet man.

Audience is bored to tears.

[sidehacker]

Brian Eno music makes every trailer better.

[Cde.]

With 12 votes it has 3.3 on IMDB, for what it's worth...which may not be much, considering Juno and American Gangster are on the top 250.

It doesn't seem like this has been very well recieved at all.

[Nothing]

Don't get me wrong, this is probably more watchable than half the dreck at Sundance. I've observed that many audience members - and Americans in particular - have a knee-jerk reaction to sexual violence on screen, responding as if they were being asked to judge the act itself and not a representation of said act within a fictional context.

Whether or not such a reaction is linked to repressed deviant desires within the morally-upright audience members is perhaps not worth getting into...

[flyonthewall2983]

Don't get me wrong, this is probably more watchable than half the dreck at Sundance. I've observed that many audience members - and Americans in particular - have a knee-jerk reaction to sexual violence on screen, responding as if they were being asked to judge the act itself and not a representation of said act within a fictional context.

Whether or not such a reaction is linked to repressed deviant desires within the morally-upright audience members is perhaps not worth getting into...

You're right on the money there. Not just sexual violence, but the kind of violence you mention towards women get people's knickers in a twist. Which I can understand to some degree.

[flyonthewall2983]

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