Film Review: I Stand Alone

Director: Gaspar Noé

The debut feature film of adventurous Argentinian director Gaspar Noé, it was released in 1998 and is essentially a remake to his short film Carne which features the same main character of the nameless butcher. The Butcher, played by Philippe Nahon, also appears at the very start of his second film Irreversible with a drunken monologue revealing the events after the end of this film. The gimmick of having a warning text before the story's climax was borrowed from William Castle's 1961 film Homicidal.

The story is mostly told through the narration of the Butcher in a voiceover style, hearing his thoughts as his mundane life is played out before him. The still photos at the beginning displaying the backstory talk about him fighting his incestuous urges towards his daughter and is jailed for stabbing a man he believes raped his daughter. Released he now lives a sad existence with his mistress who is pregnant and keeps promising to open a butchers shop for him to work in to keep him around.

The Butcher (Philippe Nahon)

The butcher slowly losing grip with reality as he explains his hatred for the world as there are no jobs due to recession and because immigrants are taking the jobs away. Much of the film is the portrayal of an increasingly irrational man placed in mundane everyday situations, unsure whether to carry out his true wishes discussed in his head. The film is shot in a very faded manner which adds to the boring and tired existence that the butcher is living. Its truly disturbing especially in two key scenes where he wants to take action against his mistress and the films finale.

Many have compared it to Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, the protagonists in both films are at least partly driven by sexual compulsions they either can not control, feel they can not control or badly desire to explore. Although I Stand Alone is more about a man rationalizing his anger into everyday life rather than being pulled towards insanity by psychotic fantasies. Philippe Nahon throws himself into the role brilliantly and very much becomes the butcher himself, which is difficult considering he is very much the only character for so much of the movie.

2.5/4 Bleak and disturbing view inside the mind of an increasingly deranged mind.