The psychological thriller sets off with a devastating rape of the main character, Michèle LeBlanc. In this first first scene she fights her rapist off while she screams loudly in her great French court house. The only thing that hears her is her cat, even though the windows are wide open no neighbour seems to care. Through the entire first part of the film Michele gazes through her windows while she looks for a sign of the creeper which the handsome neighbour Patrick apparently fought off a few days later.
As the viewer, Michèle's actions leave me more unsettled than the persona of her attacker. Immediately after the rape she cleans the room, does not call the police, does not seek the heroic help of her neighbour Patrick which he so kindly offers again and again and finally, calmly tells her friends and ex-husband about the appaling act that has been done to her during a dinner at a restaurant.
During the course of her search for her attacker, she is being sexually bullied by an employee at her game company of whom she does not know the identity, too. She and the viewer assume it must be the same person. Even though she appeared careless of the event towards others, she roams arround her house waiting for her Gaze to meet that of the Other. The concept of Satre's 'look' (Being and Nothingness, 1943) applies here. Hereby she makes herself into the centre of her rapist's Gaze. The viewer however is left to question whether her world is broken down by this gaze or not. Later, before knowing Patrick is her rapist, she looks at him through her binoculars while she mastrubates. Perhaps, this is to counter the idea of her being captured by the Gaze, as she appears all sexual in front of the major French windows while she herself gazes at him outside.
On another note, Michèle is portrayed as someone who appears to be cold towards close-ones and her employees. This becomes more evident when her affair with her best friend's husband is shown. Yet, as the viewer would expect in a traditional image twofold, in her alone-time she does not appear to be more caring of others or more warmhearted. She rather not have any pictures of family or friends in her house and even when she does spend time with her son or old mother, she seems rather careless and emotionless. The viewer is not invited into her emotional struggles which leaves the viewer to disassociate from her in every way. Is the viewer's reaction her punishment? Was it Verhoeven's goal to sadistically punish her for her emotional strongness, aka her masculinity, from the very beginning on?
Does this phallocentrism go hand in hand with Michèle being object to Patrick's rape fetish, as a means to capture and fetishise the female lead character? When Patrick answers "Because it must be done" to Michèle's question as to why he sexually assaulted her, one is left to question his motives. Can Freud give an answer with his phallic coneptualisation of fetishises as "tokens of triumph over the threat of castration and a safeguard against it" (Fetishism, 154)? This stands in line with Lacan's interpretation of fetishes being a mode of accessing power. As mentioned before, this picture leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. Perhaps the male lead character and Verhoeven himself try to regain power over the godless female lead character, by fucking God into her? All in all, 'Elle' is a dark satire about sadomasochism and sexual perversion which invites for more discussions.
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