Passion’s power

Jean-CLAUDE Brisseau’s mordant and erotic “Secret Things” is a contemporary take on “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” that unfolds in the offices and corridors of a vast and powerful Parisian bank instead of the salons and boudoirs of the provinces. Once again individuals play high-stakes games of sex and power while striving to keep their emotions firmly in check. When a grand passion ignites -- either by design or by accident -- Brisseau takes it seriously as only a Frenchman can, yet he is also capable of appreciating the deliciously fevered absurdity. The result is both merciless and darkly funny.

Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou) is a classically beautiful young woman, a newly hired nightclub bartender who is captivated by the stunning and exotic Nathalie (Coralie Revel), a graceful and compelling erotic dancer who performs wearing only high heels. Sandrine envies the power and abandonment in Nathalie’s performance. When both women are fired because Nathalie outspokenly assures Sandrine she does not have to prostitute herself as part of her job, the two become friends.

Guiding Sandrine into a profoundly empowering sexual awakening, Nathalie outlines how in tandem the two can achieve financial and social success through a carefully calculated application of brains and sex. Nathalie lands them jobs at that bank and targets Delacroix (Roger Mirmont), a good-looking high-level official on the cusp of 50, as Sandrine’s first conquest -- but not before first establishing herself as an unfailingly gracious, hard-working -- and hard-to-get employee.

Sandrine is the film’s voice-over narrator, and the principal focus is on her as Nathalie calls the shots while working in another building. The idea is that the conquest of Delacroix will be but a warmup to the main event, lassoing Christophe (Fabrice Deville), the handsome but cold and kinky son of the bank’s founder. As his father is on his deathbed, Christophe is determined that he will be the sole heir of his father’s financial empire.

As the women set their machinations in motion, Brisseau reveals his mastery of his medium as he shifts from the mundane to the increasingly grandiose to suggest that Christophe, as icily ironic as John Malkovich in “Dangerous Liaisons,” is the epitome of the individual who has such good looks and wealth that the only rules that apply are those he sets for others in an endless pursuit of sexual pleasure.

“Secret Things” grows ever more fantastic and bizarre, but such is Brisseau’s deadpan control that he sweeps the viewer along with the mounting deliriousness even when its sheer outrageousness is at the same time inescapably amusing. Brisseau is so confident that by the time “Secret Things,” which at heart is a morality play, is over it’s clear that he is a filmmaker who could get away with just about anything.

*

‘Secret Things’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Pervasive sexuality, nudity, language

Sabrina Seyvecou...Sandrine

Coralie Revel...Nathalie

Roger Mirmont...Delacroix

Fabrice Deville...Christophe

Blandine Bury...Charlotte, Christophe’s sister

A First Run Features release of a Les Aventurriers de l’Image/La Sorciere Rouge production, with the participation of CNC. Writer-director Jean-Claude Brisseau. Producers Jean-Francois Geneix, Brisseau. Cinematographer Wilfred Sempe. Editor Maria-Luisa Garcia. Music: excerpts from Bach, Purcell, Vivaldi. Costume and production designer Garcia. Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes.

Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223.