la femme nikita (1990)

ya'll suckas write me checks and then they bounce
so i reach in my pocket for the fresh amount
see i'm the long leaner, victor the cleaner
i'm the illest motherfucker from here to gardenia
i'm as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce
you've got the rhyme and reason but no cause
so if you're hot to trot you think you're slicker than grease
i've got news for you crews you'll be sucking like a leach

you can't front on that
(image: jean reno as victor the cleaner in la femme nikita)

over the weekend i plopped down on the futon and watched luc benson's la femme nikita with my roommate. had i seen the movie when it first came out i would have enjoyed it, yes, but i would have been more preoccupied with thoughts of a stand-alone movie starring jean reno as a bad ass hit man to really get into it. and then it wouldn't be another four years for my wish to come true with léon the professional. a drag to be sure.

speaking of the professional, is it weird that i have a hard time reconciling the difference between modern day natalie portman and pre-teen 1994 portman. i cant help look at her and still think, wow, she is attractive. i hope i don't get locked up for saying that.

and yet another fun la femme nikita note before i break it down: the 1993 u.s. remake of the movie was called point of no return and starred bridget fonda in anne parillaud's original role (maggie/nikita) and harvey keitel as victor the cleaner. in quentin tarantino's pulp fiction, keitel plays a character whose role is also a "cleaner of problems."


anyways, this movie. it's a mistake to write it off as just another gritty action movie. not that you were, but let's just say that's where your heads at. nikita is no more woman than she is feral beast. she's a rebel with a bad attitude so obviously she doesn't give a shit what she does or what happens to her. she's a product of violence - she lives it, she breathes it (she loves it?). she's certainly not afraid of it, and more importantly, as the viewer we're not particularly concerned what happens to her as a result.



but then she gets thrown in jail, fake killed, and enrolled in some secret french assassin program (i have a hard time believing the french of all countries have a secret assassination program). they bring her in because they admire her raw killer instinct and yet her training is more of a rehabilitation. through it we all learn that femininity is a weapon. i have no doubt this is true and that every woman uses it as such. and while she gains all sorts of great abilities, like how to use ms paint and put together a steyr aug and take out a target from a bathroom window, she also loses something in her transformation - that hard edge that made her seem so above the violence she was apart of. that cold detachment to reality that everyone knows from watching too many movies makes a great killer. now, she's still trapped in that same world of violence, but she has all the stereotypical fragility of a woman. all of the sudden she's in tears at having to kill people, she's involved in a romantic and meaningful relationship...she's a real person and as such the viewer is concerned for her well-being. all of the sudden we're shocked that this movie is putting a woman into this world of violence.


what seems like it should be the ultimate in girl power affirmation - a powerful woman, with guns! - falls back in line with typical feminine characteristics: emotional, domestic, and adverse to violence. i'm sure the intent is to show the story of a woman learning to transcend her past with the help of love and trust. bullshit. if i wanted that storyline i would watch a lifetime original movie. this is what i imagine the sisterhood of the traveling pants is about if the traveling pants were actually a desert eagle.

and as a final comment i'd just like to note that luc benson also directed the fifth element which is one of those movies that i tend to watch whenever it's on tv. mul-ti-pass?