"I Stand Alone," the debut feature from renowned French shock auteur Gaspar Noe ("Irreversible") is a film that's pretentious, caustic, tedious, and also strangely compelling. It could very well be the most bitterly misanthropic film most viewers will ever see, but whether that's a good thing is questionable. Noe's tale follows a middle-aged butcher who's spent time in prison, has an extremely short fuse, and is currently trapped in a forced relationship with a female bar owner pregnant with his child. The Butcher, played with a steely humorlessness by Philippe Nahon ("High Tension"), is a man incapable of feeling anything but hate for his fellow man (indeed, his only reason for keeping by his girlfriend's side is the hope that she will front the money for him to lease a butcher shop, which she doesn't). As a comment on class war and bigotry, the film is relentless in its overbearing bleakness (all of France is presented as a run-down warehouse district where most citizens are on welfare), brought to an even lower level by our protagonist's relentlessly hateful and homicidal thoughts; through the ticker-tape subtitles playing underneath what is usually a bland, uneventful scene, we get a window into the psychoses of a man driven to the edge. Noe interestingly ties afflictions such as racism, homophobia, wealth, and sexuality into the emasculation of this man, whose life has become meaningless as a result of the rotten hand he's been dealt.
The sound-cued, momentary blackouts, the title cards reading "Justice," "Morality," and "Living is a Selfish Act," and the camera moves accompanied by the sound of a gunshot are at first irritating and pretentious, but eventually merge with the rhythm of the film to become another extension of the Butcher's psychoses. Nahon casts an imposing figure, and portrays his unappealing character with a grace that is strangely endearing; by the time he is molesting his mute, mentally-handicapped daughter in the motel room where she was conceived, we accept his actions without excusing them. The departments where Noe falters--aside from the burgeoning hatred that grows oppressive--is the ersatz uplift of the climax, which feels like a cop-out. Additionally, the way certain lines of dialog--despite their ghastliness--veer into unintentional humor seems to illuminate Noe's pretentiousness (some early scenes with supporting characters who ham it up in TV-sitcom fashion, doesn't help). Overall, "I Stand Alone" is a showy art-house production with a clear intention to provoke its audience, but ultimately works due to its own grim merits.
The sound-cued, momentary blackouts, the title cards reading "Justice," "Morality," and "Living is a Selfish Act," and the camera moves accompanied by the sound of a gunshot are at first irritating and pretentious, but eventually merge with the rhythm of the film to become another extension of the Butcher's psychoses. Nahon casts an imposing figure, and portrays his unappealing character with a grace that is strangely endearing; by the time he is molesting his mute, mentally-handicapped daughter in the motel room where she was conceived, we accept his actions without excusing them. The departments where Noe falters--aside from the burgeoning hatred that grows oppressive--is the ersatz uplift of the climax, which feels like a cop-out. Additionally, the way certain lines of dialog--despite their ghastliness--veer into unintentional humor seems to illuminate Noe's pretentiousness (some early scenes with supporting characters who ham it up in TV-sitcom fashion, doesn't help). Overall, "I Stand Alone" is a showy art-house production with a clear intention to provoke its audience, but ultimately works due to its own grim merits.