I Stand alone = Seul contre tous (D)

An unemployed butcher returns to his native Paris after having bashed his lover and forced her to miscarriage. With 300 francs in his pocket and a gun with three bullets in his hand, he is filled with venomous bile for a world he believes has consistently oppressed him and denied him his dignity. “I Stand Alone” is an assured debut feature by Gaspar Noe, extending his previous short film that was based on the same main character. Set in 1980, the film explores a post-industrial world in which capitalism has seemingly no more need for the labourers and workers which it previously employed to generate wealth. As the butcher walks the graffiti strewn desolate streets of northern Paris, passing shut down factories and warehouses, he is continually giving vent to destructive homophobic, misogynist and racist fantasies, blaming everyone except himself for the alienation and menial servitude of his life. Employing startling effects of sound and editing to simulate the increasing paranoia and madness of its protagonist, “I Stand Alone” is an alarming and terrifying exploration of a society that has seemingly lost all egalitarian and communal values; a society in which the accumulation of wealth and the integrity of exchange are the only values and ethics that count. By the end of the film, as the butcher degenerates into complete solipsism and lunacy, he articulates a value system for this new age based on idolisation of rape, incest and murder. The film is as a passionate, ambiguous and disturbing exploration of the attraction of neo-fascism for the French indigenous working class. In French with English subtitles. (Awards: Winner of the Critic’s Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival)