American Psycho

American Psycho
Director: Mary Harron

"A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies."

This film is a great example of mise-en-scene because as we delve deeper into the protagonist's psyche, so does the camera. We begin with a clean, high end restaurant table around which are seated several well dressed, handsome men. Their dialogue is confident, cocky, and shockingly blunt as we discover that one of them has come back from the bathroom only because it's a "lousy place to do coke in." These are not the type of men we would have pegged as drug abusers, but wait -- it gets better.

The most important of the circle of coke abusing suits is Patrick Bateman, our protagonist. We see things through his eyes so much so that by the end of the film, nobody really knows if some of the events depicted actually took place.

Patrick goes on a killing spree sparked by an ATM requesting that he feed it a stray cat. One bullet from his gun sends a cop car soaring into the sky Die Hard style. We watch as he drags a body bag leaking blood out of his apartment building but when his friends appear, suddenly the blood vanishes and the body bag becomes a suitcase made my Jean Paul Gaultier.

When things are simple in the beginning, Patrick looks good. When we see him undressed, he's wearing plain white briefs. As he starts losing it, not only does his appearance become shabbier, but the style of underwear he wears because more and more elaborate -- as if reflecting his personality. He wears dark boxer briefs, silk boxers, and finally, nothing at all. This reflects his personality as he tries to cover up his fears until finally, realization dawns and he breaks down completely.

All around him, the world falls to chaos. As his mind escapes him, the world turns more and more against him. There are helicopters with gigantic search lights seeking him out in places they would never know he was hiding. (Obviously this is because it's all in his head.)

The perfect man we met in the beginning is completely falling apart.