Red Rooms analysis

Ludovic Chevalier is clearly guilty, and Kelly Anne knows it. She is at the trial, as she states directly when asked, because she is curious and she wanted to see him in person. She is an amoral character, and her motives are ambiguous, perhaps even to herself. I don't think she's there to get her rocks off on getting Ludovic's attention. I think she is there to get a thrill from participating in something real (Lady Shallott in the tower viewing the world through her mirror catches sight of something exciting and wants to experience it first hand, instead of the mediated version she is accustomed to). I don't think she is driven by a deep seated need for justice, but I do think she wanted Camille's mother to have the video and that is why she bet everything she had to get it. I don't think she paid 21.5 bitcoin and risked her anonymity and safety to watch murder porn. I think she wanted to be the one to facilitate the video coming into Camille's mother's possession more than she wanted Camille's mother to have the video. I definitely agree with the consensus that Kelly Anne is a psychopath who lacks normal emotional responses, for the most part. Like any other mental illness, psychopathy exists on a spectrum (yes, I know the DSM 5 says it is antisocial personality disorder, shut up). I think Kelly Anne shows legitimate empathy for Clementine, and losing Clementine is the impetus for her loss of control. Once Clem is gone, she is exposed. She took a risk, and she had to pay for it. She said that when she plays poker, she identifies the emotional players and exploits them, so she acknowledges the risk inherent to emotionally motivated action, but this is what drove her to attend the trial. And then, she loses her career because of it. Both because she was emotionally motivated to attend the trial, and because she was emotionally motivated to befriend Clementine and show her the truth, which drove Clem away and put her(self) in the spot light. Her carefully controlled persona, mediated by photographers and cameras, is shattered. But it seems worth it to her. It seems she felt bored and trapped in her tower. The most visceral reaction we see from her throughout the entire movie is the moment when she wins the auction for Camille's video. Not when she watches the video. Which tells me that her motivation was not to view the content but to participate in its acquisition. Now why the fuck she dresses up like Camille, I really couldn't tell you. Maybe she feels some sense of kinship with her? They kind of look alike I guess? Maybe that to some extent is what triggered her desire to participate in this specific media circus of a trial? Of course in addition to the intersection with her skills at navigating the underbelly of the internet. I think to some extent she wanted to share in Camille's experience, no matter how fucked up that desire might be. Because it is better than the soul numbing ennui she is accustomed to. At the end of the day I think the surface level true crime culture critique analysis is shallow. I think this is more of a character study. And if there is a cultural critique it is more so of the glass pane we place between ourselves and the world, and the effects therein. Including desentization to horrendous events, and the frustration and boredom resulting from living life from the sidelines. And the crazy shit we might do to reestablish a sense of balance, and to regain our sense of being a participant rather than just a witness.

Fight me.