Breaking Nikki

Redemption

R2 DVD

Argentina

English language

This Argentinean film been unavailable for some time, but has now been re-released by Nigel Wingrove’s Redemption label. In Synergy we look at a lot of foreign films that are first class – they just don’t appeal to wider audiences because they often have subtitles. Breaking Nikki has an English soundtrack and a slick look that could have come from one of the better U.S. directors so it will be better received.

The action all takes place inside the home of Devon, a decidedly sick man. His wife Susan has left him but he has trouble letting go. He waits until she comes over to get some divorce papers signed then imprisons her in an old locker that is so small she can’t stand upright or lie down to sleep. She is fed like an animal through a slot in the grille at the front of the locker by Devon’s easily-dominated brother.

Devon decides if he can’t have Susan he will make over someone in her likeness. The girl he selects is Nikki, a highclass call girl who is prepared to go along with the client’s wishes, such as wearing Susan’s expensive clothes. She is not too good at imitating someone else she doesn’t know so falls back on her own techniques, which incurs Devon’s wrath. He chains up Nikki and applies psychological pressure to her to become the Susan he wants her to be. Here we find out just how seriously disturbed Devon is, and how savagely he can take that out on Nikki. His odd taste in home movies develops into a liking for water torture. Nikki has to fight to keep her own identity but every refusal to acquiesce and become Susan just brings her more torture.

Meanwhile the real Susan is working on brother David, trying to persuade him to let her go. Can both girls escape with their sanity intact?

The film is dark and grim. The only slight sign of humanity is in David but he is so controlled by his overbearing brother that we can’t really look to him for the girls’ salvation. He just goes through the motions at the orders of his increasingly demented brother.

Such a film would usually be slow and let the tension build up, but this one is full-on within a minute of the start. It deserves better than its previous short career.

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