Her Private Hell — Review

It has been a decade since Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon hit theaters. In the time since then, Refn’s heart stopped, and he was considered clinically dead for 25 minutes in 2023. After his near-death experience, he decided to start making movies again, which was the impetus for his new film Her Private Hell.

Even more fascinating is that Hideo Kojima used Refn’s likeness for the character Heartman in his 2019 video game, Death Stranding. Heartman suffers from a condition that makes his heart stop every 21 minutes. It may not be the exact same scenario, but it is such a peculiar coincidence that it feels eerily prophetic. It calls to mind a line from Oscar Wilde’s 1889 essay, The Decay of Lying: “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” With Her Private Hell, however, the relationship between art and life feels truly symbiotic, as Refn draws from his own brush with death and the concept of fatherhood.