Red Rooms:
A Haunting Examination of Death in the Digital Age
The Lady of Shalott (1888), Painting by John William Waterhouse
"The Lady of Shalott" is a lyrical ballad written by the English poet Lord Tennyson in the mid-19th century. It tells the story of a young woman who is cursed to live in a tower on the island of Shalott near Camelot, forbidden from looking directly out at the world. The Lady spends her days weaving a magical web and watching the reflections of the world in her mirror. She sees the people of Camelot and the knights passing by, but she is not allowed to engage with them. One day, Sir Lancelot rides by, and the Lady is captivated by his reflection in the mirror. She becomes so enamored with him that she forgets the curse and looks out at him directly. As a result, the curse is triggered, and the Lady knows that her time is limited. She leaves her tower and finds a boat, which she sets afloat on the river and drifts down towards Camelot, singing her own death song. Her lifeless body is discovered by the knights and ladies of Camelot, and they are struck by her beauty. The poem ends with the realization that the Lady of Shalott has sacrificed herself for the chance to experience the natural world, but she dies before she can truly be a part of it.
Kelly-Anne in Red Room (2023) played by Juliette Gariépy
Kelly-Anne, the protagonist of Pascal Plante's technothriller Red Rooms, lives in a luxury high-rise apartment overlooking the Montréal skyline. She is a professional model and an online poker player under the username "TheLadyofShalott." Kelly-Anne (played by Juliette Gariépy) spends her free time consuming the dramatic trial of accused serial killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos). She searches the internet for personal information on Chevalier, the victims, and their families. Despite her luxury apartment, Kelly-Anne sleeps outside in an alley near the courthouse where the trial occurs.
The camera floats around as the prosecution and defense make their opening remarks, immersing the audience in the courtroom. We observe Chevalier hunched over inside a prisoner's dock made of bulletproof glass. He never speaks, only stares ahead expressionless, occasionally biting his nails. We also watch Kelly-Anne; the camera slowly zooms in on her gaze, fixed on Chevalier, and her expression is similarly vacant.
Red Room (2023) directed by Pascal Plante
The prosecution recounts the murder of three local teen girls, each one abducted on their way home from Catholic school and confined to "red rooms." Thought to be an urban legend, red rooms are a service on the dark web where users can view live feeds of people being tortured to death in real time. The prosecution meticulously describes the girls' torture, murder, and dismemberment, which was live-streamed for audiences willing to pay through cryptocurrencies. The prosecutor explains that the victims, Caucasian girls with blond hair and blue eyes from 'good families,' are the most valuable on the dark web, underscoring the unsettling concept that our lives have a price, with these videos being deemed the most profitable. The implication here is a morbid chain of supply and demand: one where our lives are assigned value and our deaths can be commodified.
As the opening day of the trial ends, Kelly-Anne exits the courtroom. The press is waiting outside, anxious to shove a camera and a microphone in the face of anyone willing to express their opinion. Kelly-Anne has nothing to say, so they move to Clémentine (played by Laurie Babin), who says that Chevalier is the victim of a conspiracy set on framing an innocent man.
Red Room (2023) directed by Pascal Plante
Kelly-Anne leaves the courthouse and passes Francine Beaulieu, giving a televised statement. Francine (Elisabeth Locas) is the mother of Camille, one of the victims. She tells the press that as hard as it is to sit in the same room as the man who killed her daughter, her grief is compounded by Chevalier's groupies shamelessly defending him. Kelly-Anne returns home to check her emails, play online poker, do aerobics, and shower before returning to the alley to sleep. She is awoken the following day by a timid Clémentine offering her a coffee, which Kelly-Anne declines.
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They arrive at the courthouse and bond over their shared interest in Chevalier. Clémentine fanatically defends him, reasoning that the prosecution fabricated the evidence to secure a conviction under intense public demands for justice. Kelly-Anne points out the implausibility of her theories; she seems more motivated by morbid curiosity and understands Chevalier is guilty without explicitly stating it.
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She invites Clémentine to stay with her, who starts to exhibit erratic and antisocial behavior. Clémentine calls into a late-night show against Kelly-Anne's warnings. She blasts the panelists discussing the trial for their "bullshit" biases and maintains that Chevalier will be proven innocent. Some panelists mock her, while others show genuine concern for her mental well-being, suggesting she seek out a therapist—Clémentine sobs.
Laurie Babin as Clementine and Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne
The prosecution enters their most disturbing evidence: two videos of a masked man resembling Chevalier torturing and executing victims in the red rooms. The videos were found by FBI agents and traced back to Chevalier; the third video remains missing. The prosecution and the defense agree the videos will be viewed in a closed courtroom due to their sensitive nature; only the jury and the victims' parents are allowed to stay. Clémentine lingers around the door outside the courtroom to see if she can hear Chevalier's voice in the video. Kelly-Anne tells her that the man in the video never speaks. Clémentine turns around and asks her how she knows this. We hear the first video begin, the sound of power tools turning on and girls shrieking in pain.
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Back home, she closes the window shades and plugs a USB drive into her computer. The first video starts, and the monitor emits a red glow onto their faces. We hear the sound of power tools turning on and girls shrieking. The audience never sees the explicit images of torture. But we hear the screams are enough for us to imagine their suffering. Clémentine looks horrified while Kelly-Anne unflinchingly stares into the monitor. The second video ends with the masked man looking into the camera. Clémentine's eyes are closed, tears streaming down her face. The following day, upset by Kelly-Anne's detachment, she returns home, accepting that Chevalier is likely the man in the video.
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Kelly-Anne's life unravels as the trial progresses. She receives blowback for attending every day of the trial, with employers canceling photoshoots and removing her from their websites. Her deteriorating mental state leads her to act out on Chevalier's birthday. She appears in court wearing a catholic schoolgirl uniform, a blond wig, and blue contact lenses. As the music crescendos, she bites down a retainer to resemble one of the victims. She smiles as the police escort her out of the room. Chevalier makes a pouty face resembling a sad clown and waves to her.
Red Room (2023) directed by Pascal Plante
The stunt goes viral, and Kelly-Anne is let go by her modeling agency. With nothing left to lose, she enters an anonymous auction to win the missing video of the third victim. She wins the auction after securing enough crypto in a high-stakes online poker match. Her giddy reaction to winning is one of the first signs of emotion the otherwise aloof Kelly-Anne has shown. She downloads it onto a USB. Once again dressed in her schoolgirl costume, she breaks into Francine's home to take a selfie resembling Camille in her daughter's room; the flash of the phone camera illuminates a forced smile.
In the film's epilogue, a newscast mentions that the third video more explicitly shows Chevalier forcing his defense team to enter a guilty plea. Clémentine is interviewed and expresses remorse for defending the convicted killer, explaining that she was lonely and confused, looking for a connection with anyone, caught up in the spectacle of the trial. Kelly-Anne's fate is left ambiguous. Was it a final act of redemption, an attempt to bring justice to Camille, peace for her mother, and ease her own conscience? Or did she hope to inflict pain on Francine by showing her the video of her daughter's death? A moment of absolution or one of sociopathy?
Red Room (2023) directed by Pascal Plante
Red Rooms adapts elements and thematic threads of Tennyson's poem into a modern, digital context. Both explore the consequences of isolation and obsession through the protagonist's shift from passive observation to active engagement. It is a path that led to their self-destruction before they could truly engage the world around them. In doing so, Palante showcases the impact of technology on human connection and the unsettling intersection of voyeurism and real-world suffering. It's a timely tale in an era when death has been turned into mass-produced content via an endless stream of true crime documentaries and podcasts. The daily consumption of these images broadcast from the internet for all to see has simultaneously turned us into both victims and perpetrators, haunted by images and voices of the dead.
October 2023
By Cameron Yudelson