Note: We have already published the following article and edited it again for the current TV broadcast.
Kristen Stewart got her big break with the Twilight saga. Since then she has built up one of the most interesting careers in Hollywood and is now one of the big names in world cinema. Last but not least, her collaborations with Olivier Assayas are decisive for this. The best of these is called Personal Shopper, which runs today at 8:15 p.m. on ServusTV.
Watch a trailer for Personal Shopper here:
Personal Shopper – Trailer (German) HD
Kristen Stewart in the most extraordinary ghost film of the 21st century
The French director pitted her against Juliette Binoche and Chloë Grace Moretz in 2014’s superb The Clouds of Sils Maria before writing a film just for her two years later, and hers to this day most impressive performance cast on the big screen.
We’re talking about Personal Shopper, which is one of the most extraordinary ghost films of the 21st century. Between horror and drama, an eerie story unfolds here that offers Kristen Stewart an incredible stage to share fine nuances a fragile figure to shape.
However, Personal Shopper does not function according to the traditional mechanisms of a horror film, but rather varies and distorts familiar genre elements – always with a special focus on the hidden conflicts of the main character, who makes her way through Paris as a so-called personal shopper – i.e. as a shopping consultant for fashion issues.
Personal Shopper, a film full of mysterious images
However, the fashion metropolis does not shine here in a flurry of flashbulbs. Instead, Olivier finds Assayas unexcited and yet mysterious images, making the city look as desolate as it is beautiful. Personal Shopper subverts expectations, unites opposites and finds many alternative perspectives for otherwise very familiar sequences of scenes and conflicts.
© World Cinema
Personal Shoppers
And then the ghosts (sometime even throwing up ectoplasm) appear, although we can’t guess them as much as we can see them in the darkness. But Maureen, played by Kristen Stewart, is so confident in her presence that it would be impossible to deny that Olivier Assayas’ cinematic spaces are empty. Anything that we can’t visually see in Personal Shopper, reflected on Kristen Stewart’s face.
The film tells of life and death, of hidden trauma and dark secrets, of hopes and longings – and all of this in contrast to the materialistic along with unexpected border crossings, which finally culminate in an exchange of short text messages on a smartphone. Olivier Assayas finds many expressions for the story.
All personal shopper emotions are concentrated in Kristen Stewart’s face
But Kristen Stewart is most valuable in this film as a projection screen for everything unspoken that lies dormant in the characters and the world in which they live. She absorbs all impressions of this world and repels them at the same moment. Unapproachable, encrypted like a riddle: In the end, her Maureen faces the camera without any armor in what is probably the film’s strongest shot.
Once again, everything that happens in Personal Shopper takes place in Kristen Stewart’s face and we get a complete picture of the room even when we only see a fraction of this. You won’t find better proof of Kristen Stewart’s acting talent out there.
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Will you watch Personal Shoppers on ServusTV tonight?