L'intrus (2004)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Claire Denis

Writers:

Claire Denis (writer)
Jean-Pol Fargeau (writer)

Release Date:

4 May 2005 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Louis Trebor, a man nearing 70, lives alone with dogs in the forest near the French-Swiss border. He has heart problems...

Plot Keywords:

Heart | Tahiti | Forest | Dream | Children

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Michel Subor	...	Louis Trebor
Grégoire Colin	...	Sidney
Yekaterina Golubeva	...	Young Russian Woman (as Katia Golubeva)
Bambou	...	Pharmacist
Florence Loiret	...	Antoinette (as Florence Loiret-Caille)
Lolita Chammah	...	The Wild Woman
Alex Descas	...	The Priest
Dong-ho Kim	...	Ship Owner
Se-tak Chang	...	Ship Owner's Associate
Hong-suk Park	...	Man at the Fish Market
Edwin Alin	...	Le patron de la quincaillerie
Henri Tetainanuarii	...	Henri
Jean-Marc Teriipaia	...	Tony
Anna Tetuaveroa	...	The Mother
Béatrice Dalle	...	Queen of the Northern Hemisphere

Also Known As:

The Intruder (International: English title)

Runtime:

130 min | Italy:125 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English | Korean | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Argentina:13 | Hong Kong:IIB | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Busan, South Korea

Company:

Ognon Pictures

Movie Connections:

Edited from Le reflux (1965)

More than just visual

The film is not visually stunning in the conventional sense. It doesn't present a series of pretty pictures. Instead it is a visually interesting film. It forces the viewer to constantly process or perhaps imagine the context of the various shots. This sort of thing is easy to try but hard to succeed at. The film refuses to use the crutch of a genre to help the less than fully engaged viewer get what's going on. Instead the film touches on and moves through a number of different genres. The trick to loving the film is being able to enjoy this playfulness. I suspect 99% of North American viewers will just not get it. If you try to pin down the narrative of this film, or the philosophical message, or the symbolist structure, etc. you will waste your time. There are none of these. The film only feints towards these genres and others at times. The only unifying force in the film is Claire Denis's own sense of what fits together. There are so few feature length films that come close to satisfying Kant's description of what art is, namely the enjoyment of the power of judgment itself instead of simply subsuming experiences under concepts. Film usually takes the easy way out and opts for the simpler pleasure of understanding what's happening. Most film is not art. Most film doesn't come close to art. When a film does, as this one does, and is still enjoyable by a large range of viewers, it's something of a miracle. My on negative comment is that at times I find the film too simplistically buying in to the various narrative threads that run through it. The Tahiti father-son narrative, even though it's not exactly conventional, ends up making things a little to clear and simple. It dominates too much.