Simon Killer might just be the best movie from 2013 that, for some unknown reason, no one saw. Directed by Antonio Campos (who helped produced the brilliant slow burn, Martha Marcy May Marlene) and starring Brady Corbet (of Funny Games), the movie was quite unlike anything I had ever seen. It was a stunningly shot, yet slow paced film about a young man named Simon who finds himself in France after a nasty breakup, just trying to get on with his life. As we spend more time with him though, we see just what that means.
I will spoil nothing here because I think anyone who likes good films needs to see Simon Killer, but the slow reveal is what makes the movie work so well. That being said, there is one scene that really stood out to me.
By the midpoint of the film, Simon is living with a French prostitute who he has formed a relationship with. With little warning and little set up, she slips her finger up his asshole while he is on his knees on the bed. I wasn’t disturbed by the act itself, or the homosexual undertones of the act. It was just the rawness in which it was represented. She slowly slides her finger along his spine, as if we all knew it was coming and were clenching, yet Simon was ready.
Relax, they don’t actually show it or anything, and it sets the tone for the depravity of Simon, but it is just a moment I have never seen represented so blatantly in a film before.
