Absolute Corruption: on Welcome to New York
There’s a gloriously seething heart to Abel Ferrara’s latest feature Welcome to New York. While the city may provide the focus of the title, it is Gerard Depardieu’s protagonist — a thinly veiled rendering of the disgraced Dominique Strauss-Kahn — that is the target of this caustic takedown. A prefacing disclaimer attests to artistic license being taken by the filmmaker, but the lurid events portrayed within jab a razor-sharp finger of judgment at the both the real-life former IMF chief and his fictionalised effigy. In a meta-textual prologue, Depardieu himself condemns the character as thoroughly unlikeable.
In a staggeringly bold performance from the French actor, he plays the uncontrollably lascivious George Devereux. Introduced attempting to bribe an official with compliant female employees, when his offers are declined he takes advantage of them himself pawing breathlessly at the naked flesh of the nubile women draped around his office. His proclivities are explored during the film’s opening third — a night of hedonistic indulgence in a swanky New York hotel room before an altercation with a maid in the same room. From there, Ferrara explores his time in state incarceration for sexual assault through an unflinching social realist lens, before Devereux is interred in an expensive apartment as he awaits a verdict; philosophising or arguing with his ambitious wife, Simone (Jacqueline Bisset).
It is in that final third that things begin to unravel for what has otherwise been a masterclass in provocation and grotesquery. As Depardieu grunts his way through a series of sordid encounters and then — quite literally — lays everything bare during his spell behind bars, he is a compelling monstrosity. His insatiable appetite is repulsive not only for its corpulence but because it is de-sensualised by his eyes, hauntingly devoid of lust. It is power that stokes his fires and is horrifyingly evident as he demands fellatio against the will of the unsuspecting maid. “Do you know who I am?”
When it is concerned with the vice and exposure it is brilliantly absorbing, but once bail has been granted and Devereux is ensconced with Simone, the raw power is lost amidst turgid soliloquies. A late flashback makes literal the assumption that rape is scarcely a new concept to this debauched millionaire. As he attempts to force himself onto a young reporter — the daughter of a close friend, no less — little insight is gained that was not already perfectly apparent. He forlornly stares from the windows of the apartment, articulating his pessimistic worldview, but if this is an attempt to convey the tragedy of a self-destructive anti-hero it falls painfully short.
Similarly problematic are the semi-improvised conversations between the husband and wife as they lament the ruination of a hopeful presidential campaign. Going inanely around in circles, they are stilted arguments that never provide deeper meaning. Although there is implicit damnation in the ultimate trial outcome, things collapse into ponderous theatricality despite an audacious opening and a fearless central performance.
This review was originally published on the now defunct Vérité Film Magazine blog for the film’s UK cinema release in, August 2014.