Cannes: With 'Elle,' Paul Verhoeven makes noise, and another comeback

The movie's opening may as well arrive with an on-screen statement. Loud shrieking lends the impression a couple is having sex, but the first sight is a close-up of a cat. Then the camera cuts to the source of the shrieks, and it turns out what sounded like love was actually an assault. Needling, absurd, sexual, kinetic -- all those adjectives apply to Verhoeven. The Dutch-born director has followed one of the more improbable career arcs in modern cinema -- from European obscurity to Hollywood heights to industry punch-line ("Showgirls," anyone?), back to European acclaim.