Many, many spoilers here!!!! It took me over 2 years to watch this film after having purchased it. I had seen Irreversible, and was actually afraid of seeing this movie because of not knowing what to expect. Anyway, I loved it. It rings so true to the thoughts of most of us... truly, we see in his racing thoughts the angry mentality that takes over us when the social structure conspires to crush our spirits. Unemployed, in a relationship with an ugly demanding woman (who has furthered the walls around him by carrying his child), away from the only person he loves (his daughter), aging with nothing to show for it, flat broke, and immersed in a system only preoccupied with appeasing the rich and ostracizing the poor. Of course it generates anger, and the blame definitely needs to be attributed to someone. Now, in the case of our friend, he shows very strongly how information overload leads to stagnation, it almost becomes a matter of survival for him to turn life into something monochromatic, some action of his must be undertaken in order to effectively change. Playing the game according to the system has failed him. The movie has a lot of inner dialog, and if you're like me and don't speak French, you will be reading very quickly. This definitely reflects the manic state he is in; he concretely projects his aggression into external objects, and takes action accordingly (seen when he kills his unborn child still in the womb). It unravels into a psychotic state when he becomes delusional about what he needs to do in order to save himself and his handicapped daughter. They must both die so they can truly be free, so they can truly fuse as one. At this point an advisory notice comes onto the screen, stating you have 30 seconds to leave the screening. This is definitely anxiety-provoking for anyone. What follows is definitely disturbing. His daughter is shot from behind, the bullet hole piercing through her neck and she lies on the floor writhing, bleeding from the orifice, resembling the slaughtering of a cow or horse (the image that came to me was of the horse at the beginning of Carne), and he as well states that animals usually die faster, and he can't stand to see her suffer like that. The analogy to irrational beasts is more evident with the fact that she does not speak, thus contorts and dies as a nonverbal creature would. The concreteness of his outside projections becomes more limited, and he decides killing the man who didn't give him a job was less important than carrying out the main plan. In essence, by reenacting his past profession (and thus the definition of his life) in that moment, he literally kills off the 2 key aspects of his existence to date with the 2nd shot (he destroys the image of the slaughtered contorting animal, which he can no longer stand to watch; and he kills his daughter, his link to happiness, and the only thing truly keeping him in this world). Thus, she is shot in the head. He deliberates for a long time before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide, thus destroying the 2nd part of his psyche, the castrated version of himself that no longer has any real reason to remain alive. Eventually we see this was all engendered by his imagination, and he decides to seek the so-called fusion with his daughter in a sublimated form, having sex, a more attractive alternative which also allows psychic survival. After this, there is something of a reverse Oedipal role, she is the mother-figure consoling the crying baby, and the boundaries of the forbidden incestuous relationship are shattered, thus he can find peace. All in all, an excellent film. Don't compare it to Irreversible, they have exceedingly distinct messages.. there do seem to be allusions to it (many references to tunnels) as well as to Noe's new film in the mentioning of the great void of death. Highly recommended, this man is a genius.
Review of I Stand Alone
