Kritiken

The chamber piece ultimately feels a little too slight and shifty to justify its runtime. Ending just as its long-teased crescendo of reciprocal madness begins, "Piercing" is a little too smart for its own good.

It’s like some infernal cinematic machine designed to generate a rarefied kind of aesthetic nausea, fascinating but also a little morally dubious... It all works pretty well until the abrupt ending lets all the air out of the balloon. The dream-team pairing of Abbott and Wasikowska, two of the most interesting, subtle and risk-loving performers of their generation, is a huge compensation.

The real originality here... is that [Pesce] is using elements normally found in only the most twisted and depraved exploitation pictures to make a light screwball comedy. The result is a film that is far more accessible and entertaining than its storyline would lead you to expect.

For those who prefer their cinema trussed up and slobbering on a ball gag, "Piercing" provides an hour and 20 minutes of nasty fun, though it occasionally feels like a great short stretched out beyond its optimal length... It may not be a great film in itself, but it suggests its 29-year-old director is more than capable of making one.

A beautifully stylized, highly demented take on the power dynamics of men and women that barely breaks the thematic surface — though what a gorgeous surface it is... Yet you slouch away from this horroshow feeling like you’ve watched a cinematic bric-a-brac fashion show instead of film interpretation of one extremely knotty novel.

Not for the squeamish, though little of what Pesce discovers with his two more-than-game leads is surprising... For some, "Piercing" may be a sign of an exceptionally talented filmmaker still finding his stride, this expertly handled erotic thriller an imaginative, stylized headache. For others, "Piercing" may be all those things, but ultimately not worth the punishment.

[The film's] ideas are as vague as its context... For every clever twist, there’s a dead giveaway; the movie’s high-style décor is more alluring than the drama.

Pushing the concepts of consensual BDSM to their very furthest extremes, Pesce's curious, stylized, and perversely erotic romance will inevitably make the audience flinch. Melding underground horror with arthouse intimacy, rarely has the question "Can these crazy kids make it work?" had a more perturbing answer.

Alternately alluring and repellent, Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing is designed to get under your skin. . . . It’s a gorgeous meet-cute flick — it’s just that the two cuties meeting cutely happen to be two deeply twisted weirdos.

[A] kitschy, harrowing and coolly perverse film...“Piercing” is decidedly not for everybody, but it somehow avoids exploitative luridness, thanks in part to the peculiar aura of uneasy innocence that Abbott and Wasikowska create around their roles...[though] the music choices are the real killer.

What a deliciously demented and disturbing drama... ["Piercing"] sits right at the juncture of De Palma and Argento in that it's an erotic thriller with a whole lot of blood-letting. But Pesce has put his own hallucinatory, surreal and bizarre spin on things. While the film works within a specific stylistic reference point, it's unlike anything you've ever seen.

“Piercing” has an audaciousness that largely lies in splitting the difference between viewer interest and viewer exasperation... [but] it gains momentum as it indulges in hallucinogenic phantasmagoria. Whatever you make of its intentions, it’s certainly exceptional in its visual distinction.