Assignment for Norrin
![Image](https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/0591/bjqhzfg5sgo1k1m6g.jpg)
Plot Synopsis:
Natalie and Orsi both work for Norrin, whilst also stealing money from him. Now, Natalie has been caught, so Orsi has the pleasure of delivering the bad news and posing an ultimatum: if she does not die, then her family will. Orsi was kind enough to bring some poison for her associate to off herself with, but after she leaves the room to give Natalie some time to decide, the doomed woman chooses to take her heinous partner with her, by injecting the poison into Orsi's bubbly glass. Once things are properly arranged, Natalie takes a pistol out of her bag, mentally steadies herself and then commits suicide by blasting a bullet right into her own forehead. The returning Orsi lords over Natalie's corpse, speaking down to her before unbuttoning the dead woman's shirt to reveal her naked breasts. Afterwards, she empties her glass of bubbly before realizing that the poison syringe lies empty in Natalie's glass. Putting things together far too late, she dies a painful death as the poison takes effect, resulting in two dead ladies resting on one couch.
(Headshot, Poisoning, Suicide, Topless)
Story:
The plot is not overly complicated, yet intriguing in the dynamic between the two characters and the situation they find themselves in. The actions of both Orsi and Natalie make sense. The former is happy to get her accomplice out of the way while escaping punishment herself, clearly acting like a smug bitch without any sympathy towards the latter. Thereby, Natalie has an obvious motivation to poison her. That wiliness, in addition to the fact that she essentially kills herself to protect her family, performing this sacrifice which visibly requires mental fortitude and bravery to perform, makes her both sympathetic and sexy. It also makes the comeuppance Orsi receives in the end much more satisfying. The only real criticism I have in regards to the story, is the lack of motivation for Orsi to unbutton Natalie's top. In the producer's description, it is made explicit that she cannot resist the sight of Natalie's breasts, but there is no indicator in the video itself, neither a line, nor a simple act like a cupping or touching of the exposed bosom to visually inform the viewer of Orsi's lust, making it seem rather mechanical and purely motivated by an anticipated desire of the viewer to see Natalie's breasts, not so much of the character. Still, all in all, a very nice, nifty story with interesting enough characters for a story of that kind.
8/10
Performances:
Natalie acts her part rather subtly, not showing that much emotion at the beginning aside from some resignation. It is enough to suggest that, instead of Natalie non-acting, her character is simply rather stoic, which, given the historical baggage of that attitude, makes it rather fitting for someone who is forced to commit suicide. And how well she does it! From the moment Orsi leaves the room and it becomes a one-woman show for the moment, she is excellent in the way she sets up the poison for her partner in crime, emptying her own glass to that end with a satisfactory implication of the bubbly being needed as a nerver. Her following reactions too, the nervous looks, the shifting around, the heavy breathing as she braces herself, all work marvelously to showcase what an enormous act of guts it is that she is committing to. For a suicide scene to be effective, you must be able to believe that the character is losing something more than just their life, whether it is communicated beforehand or (non-)verbally in the scene itself. That is why being too stoic can hurt a suicide scene, running the risk of the character appearing not to care that they die, except for the pain, perhaps. Natalie succeeds in selling her emotions, the overcoming of her natural survival instincts, because she communicates to the viewer how much it takes from her to go through with it. As I wrote before, this bravery of her character, to be willing to sacrifice herself for her family, plus her being clever in orchestrating Orsi's unintentional self-poisoning, ultimately contribute to present her as a strong-minded and smart woman, brought to life (and then to death) by Natalie's excellent performance. Also, props to her for that one longer take where she was able to maintain her beautiful death stare.
In stark contrast to her fellow actress, Orsi plays her part much more theatrically, which does end up being a boon for her character who is so arrogant and smug that we want to see her die for being such a bitch. And although she seems a little unsure of her character at first (which, granted, Natalie does too), when it comes to selling that smugness and just how little of a fuck she gives that her partner has to die, Orsi does a great job. To display such nastiness surely does not look to be difficult for her, in the role of the "bad bitch". The way she addresses Natalie's corpse upon her return is also noteworthy in how spot on and plainly rude it is. Her overacting in the end, before the poison takes effect, does border dangerously close on being comical, but her death scene fortunately pulls you back in. In the end, you have one pretty good, one great performance. Very good work.
9/10
Death scenes:
One suicide by gunshot and one poisoning. I suppose I already went into the performances of the actresses in the preceding section, so let us instead focus on the execution from a technical standpoint. Natalie's death, from that perspective, was fine. You do not see the exact moment when the bullet enters her skull, but in the way it was shot, you believe the impact of the bullet and a quick cut to the gun getting dropped shows how her legs are still moving a little from the aftereffect which is more than neat, especially when followed by the aforementioned longer take consisting of Natalie's death stare, the camera being pulled back to show her dead body sitting there, then back to her face. The composition of it is good, I merely think that more could have been done in terms of the headshot itself, more twitching, agonal respiration, etc. But that is just my personal taste. The exposing of Natalie's breasts afterwards is sexy too, but again, it helps when the motivation for it is established in the video itself.
Orsi's death was also fine. The sounds she made, along with her hand gestures really emphasised how the poison apparently affected her breathing, leading to some nice convulsions and eventually her body lying still on the couch. I particularly approve of one shot where you could see dead Natalie sitting next to her as she was dying, which felt like a nice touch to me, from a metaphorical "revenge from beyond the grave" angle, so to speak. That could have been further emphasised, but overall, solid stuff.
8/10
Scenery and costumes:
Not much to say about the scenery. The whole video takes place on a black couch, nothing distracting in the background. The outfits are not particularly erotic, but sexy enough (I probably prefer Orsi's, simply due to the Black Widow vibe she exudes with it). What I will commend, though, is again, the contrast they create. Natalie with her white blouse, Orsi with her black top and pants, it is just another neat detail, differentiating the characters. Little things like that should be appreciated, because they do matter, be it even on a mostly subconscious level.
7/10
Immersion:
The dialogue in the beginning is a little hokey, Orsi flubbing a line, but nothing too bad. What hurts the most, is one specific closeup of Natalie's dead face (bottom left in the collage on the top), with Orsi's right next to it, when she says her best line in the video. Tragically, it is difficult to ignore the movement of Natalie's tongue there, and although the closeup only lasts a few seconds, it is still a scene I tend to skip when rewatching the video, just because of it's immersion breaking effect to me. The cameraman's shadow during Orsi's death scene is noticeable and does pull you out a little, but it is not too bad in the moment itself. Two blinks from Orsi were also barely noticeable (as a rule of thumb, I do not blame actresses for blinking; I would simply prefer it to be eliminated via editing).
7/10
Final Score:
39/50
I highly recommend "Assignment for Norrin" to those who enjoy suicide/forced suicide scenarios, with a smart little plot allowing for a poisoning to be snuck in as well. All elements work well enough in concert to produce an unique video that is a lot of fun and quite rewatchable, even if it only for the death scenes of the two beautiful ladies starring in it.
Personal rating:
4 1/2 stars
If you followed the thread on the White Wolf Publications topic, you would know this video was going to speak to my personal tastes, and it did in a lot of ways. The headshot wound was just right, the actresses were just right, and the story, which I have got to give Max a lot of credit for, was really good. In terms of it's originality, it is something I would encourage all producers to strive after.
Variety is said to be the spice of life. In many regards I consider it to be the spice of death as well. What separates a good from a bad producer, to me, is above all, a certain level of sophistication in regards to the story. Of course, all the technical aspects, f/x, editing, etc. are very important, but what is paramount is the ability to enable the viewer to believe that the characters portrayed are people, that these are people who die and kill and even though they may often be played by the same actors/actresses, the effort should always be made to make their reactions to their deaths plausible. One can only die once, and this finality, in my opinion, lies at the very core of our fetish and should therefore be respected as such.