Already Dead (1998)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

That's what all the characters, with the exception of Andrea, are - dead, emotionally; as one of them says 'I'm like a dry river bed'. A group of young men with a penchant for drugs, girls and parties decide to try and break into the heavily controlled pornography industry in Nice with a cynical ingénue called Laure as their main product. The film charts the disintegration of all the characters as drugs, guns, sexual excess and the pornographic industry take their toll on each life. Even Andrea, the film's conscience, is eventually consumed by this world and its trappings.Laure is a commodity amongst all the men except Andrea, the guy who unwittingly introduces her to the other when they are dabbling in soft porn photography. Laure, described as 'purity in a brutal world', is used as the film's narrator to reflect on life. Her reflections are frequently accompanied by repeated visuals of her removing make-up after the making of one particular pornographic film that we are left knowing is destroying Laure.This film is a critique of pornography's production and the feckless upper (middle) class of Nice who have money and influence enough to seduce and take advantage of those vulnerable with ambition and aspiration, such as Laure. It is most certainly not a film noir and it is really bizarre that it has been described as such by others. The director critiques the belief that 'straight or porn {films}, the camera's the same' and Laure's naive belief that posing topless is no different from making a pornographic film. It is and the camera of a porn film does not treat its actors well. The women of the porn industry want to make it as mainstream actresses or like Laure be a big name, someone significant. Their expectations of achieving this through porn are disappointed.Early on Laure asks: 'isn't fate the assertion that the game is up?' The ending has an inevitability that seems fated as life calls time on the game the characters play. The concluding events whilst unsurprising are still brutal and shocking.

After reading a comment here, on IMDb, I was expecting a film Noir. Now, I don't exactly know why that person thought that this was Noir, but really, I can't find any element in the whole movie that could fit it in that category. I felt like I was like a French, cheap version of Requiem for a dream. Except for the fact that, in Déjà Mort, the main male caracter is a total idiot that seem only capable of doing one thing : ruining other people's life and/or kill them. SPOILER : the worst part of it all is the fact that he is just about the only one who doesn't die at the end, something I had been expecting...

Although the girl thinks she is the one who makes the decisions in her live it is fate that is in control. More so if drugs are involved.This film shows us that often it are the most honest of young people that can get trapped because they want to be part of the swinging live. They become too late aware that it is all make believe.

This is a gem of a "noir" movie showing various character in a self-destructive descent into hell. This is not really a portrayal of the porn business, but much more. A young guy is fascinated by two poseurs taking snapshots and agrees to introduce to them a girl, Zoé, he watches from afar. The two rich brats accept him as Zoé's "chaperon", but they soon turn her to the porn business. This could be sub-Tarantino territory, but Dahan actually fleshes out his characters, introduces real humanity and, if we know this will all end in tragedy, the "how" remains fascinating. This is great, sincere stuff.