Gaspard
Noé’s feature film debut is a harsh portrait of contemporary
French life. “Seul contre tous” centers around a
middle-aged unemployed butcher who is trying to salvage a life that
has long been on the skids. After abandoning his autistic teenage
daughter, the butcher moves to Lille with his pregnant girlfriend
determined to make a fresh start. His hopes of finding work are quickly
dashed and his bitterness towards the world begins to take on frightening
proportions. A brutal domestic quarrel forces him to return to his
old neighborhood in Paris where he rents a room in a decrepit hotel
and looks for a job. Violence simmers beneath his every move. Motivated
by racism, misogyny and a hair-trigger temper, the butcher seems ready
to blow at any minute. In the final scenes of the film, reunited with
his daughter, he contemplates an unthinkable act of violence. Only
moments before the film ends does Noé offer the spectator the
faintest glimmer of tenderness and redemption. Noé uses powerful
techniques to build tension in this film from beginning to end. On
the soundtrack gunshots provide an unrelenting assault and the most
graphic images are announced by cautionary intertitles. Actor Nahon,
playing the butcher, contributes the stream-of-conciousness voice-over
which never lets up for a single second. Be forewarned, a journey
inside this man’s mind, as difficult as it is to watch, will
change the way you see French culture forever.
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Strand Releasing |
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