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I Stand Alone (Seul contre tous)

post #1 of 3
5/15/08 at 3:51am
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This is a film I almost wish I hadn't seen. I, like most everyone here, saw Irreversible and was deeply effected by it. It was a profound film, regardless of how depraved parts of it were, and Gaspar Noé was a director I aspired to see more films by. So I looked at his IMDB page and saw this. A drama/thriller as described by IMDB, which are both genres that I love. So naturally I picked this up, and I really fucking hated it. There comes a point when one needs to draw a line in the sand of what he/she will or will or not watch, and this is a film that falls beyond the line, simply because the subject matter is the product of a likely depraved mind. I hate saying this about films, but this film was not only poorly constructed, executed, and acted, but the bits of the film that make any sense at all are contradictions of themselves, and usually have something rather nonsensical to say about something rather sickening. Philippe Nahon's performance genuinely pissed me off, as his rambling monologues were such a disgrace I actually began to feel as if my intelligence was actually being insulted - especially the last few dealing with incest, and his thoughts while dying - . I've heard people call this film brilliant because it's so manipulative. What the fuck does that even mean? It's an exploitation film now? I've seen many exploitation films and none of them make me feel this way, including Thriller (and I know I keep coming back to that one), probably because most of them have a point and a narrative that has at least one redeeming quality. This film....meh may be the worst film I've ever seen. Dépravé. I'd like to hear someone who is a native of France's opinion on this.
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post #2 of 3
5/15/08 at 7:28am
I Stand Alone is another example of what Gaspar Noe does, he attacks his audience. The bulk of the film is narration so it's like your trapped in a room, and constantly being assaulted by The Butcher's vicious and disordered inner monologue. He's a man with no education, no prospects, and the bare minimum of introspective power. He's fucked from top to bottom.

Perhaps that's the reason you've reacted so strongly to it, because Noe purposely evades the kind of clarity that would be alien to his protagonist. The Butcher is this very coarse and hostile pile of sadness with no means of articulating his own despair, so yeah, it's going to come out as a rambling, ugly mess, because it's all he knows.
A man who is his job, who is only referred to by the title of his profession, automatically has a tenuous sense of identity. Now, being French is an identity, but he has no place in France (at least not as a middle-aged man), so to hear him say it, "fuck" France.

Now I'm not entirely on the I Stand Alone train, as the film feels as affected and tiresome as some accuse Irreversible of being (a criticism I mostly disagree with), this impression due primarily to the last fifteen minutes of the film, which failed to have any real, gut-level effect on me whatsoever. That being said, I still appreciate Noe's boldness as a filmmaker.

Maybe I'm kind of a lame aesthete in that way, but I'm attracted to the assault, it also helps that when I first saw I Stand Alone I had been reading Georges Bataille, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror, so I was in that "phase", and since I don't take myself too seriously, it was all kind of fun and sexy to me at the time.

I could say that I like I Stand Alone despite its flaws, but what some would recognize as flaws, I'd recognize as virtues, so I'll just say that I see value in I Stand Alone as the work of an evasive, maybe trashy, maybe brilliant artist.*




*"We Fuck Alone", his segment for the short film compilation Destricted? Not one of my favorite things.
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post #3 of 3
5/15/08 at 4:25pm
I seem to remember this DVD being super-duper widescreen, like 2.55:1. Am I making that up?
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