I Stand Alone is a forgotten masterpiece, the first feature-length film from the iconic moustachioed face of New French Extremity, Gaspar Noé. It stands as a testament to a type of transgressive independent cinema that barely exists in the modern age.
This film, along with Vincent Gallo’s brilliant Buffalo 66 (essay coming soon), exemplifies why I have wanted to return to this era of independent cinema, which I enjoyed heavily in my youth. In the case of I Stand Alone, the reason for this is far more than just its shocking transgressive nature; every element of the film is brilliant. Although it is retroactively (and mistakenly) thrown in with shock-jock video nasties, it offers a great deal more for viewers demanding a richer experience of cinema.
It’s a direct sequel to the even more violent short film Carne, which I would also encourage you to search out if you’re sincerely interested in I Stand Alone as a companion precursor piece. The film tells the story of the Butcher, a down-on-his-luck misanthrope who entertains violent fantasies, which sometimes lead him into sinful acts. The film plays with your perception of how many of these acts are real and how many are just deep existential ruminations by our cursed narrator.
And narrator is the most apt term here, for rather than dialogue, which is overall sparse in the film, we’re treated to internal monologues—the innermost thoughts of the Butcher. This is what separates the film from so many others in my eyes. It’s like a visual version of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, as we’re treated to the brutal, violent, and oftentimes hilarious thoughts of this individual.
The fantasies are particularly lush: dreams of shooting people, sticking it to his supposed enemies, and just deep misanthropic hatred for the world and everyone in it, as well as crude nihilistic philosophy on the absolute pointlessness and futility of existence. On my recent rewatch, I had forgotten just how far down the rabbit hole of oblivion he goes and found myself laughing in disbelief. Here is a man with no redeeming features, in a hell of his own making, yet I can’t help but feel incredibly attached to him as he spews out his thoughts, many of which mirror mine—and I’m sure many men’s in their darkest moments.
It’s brilliant in its unrelenting bleakness, something people who are unversed in dark and transgressive media don’t seem to understand. A man so trapped inside the confines of his own flesh is a comedian. To loathe existence rather than embrace and celebrate it is the zenith of the jester role. Its brilliance lies in its absurdity and can be read (by the more optimistic viewer) as a critique of negativity itself. There is surely no way this character can ever get himself into a better headspace in his current form; he is beyond saving.
The film itself is shot on 35mm film and presented in a strangely wide ratio, which further increases the brutal beauty of 1990s France. Towering tenements full of immigrants casually discussing abusing women, the dim red light of Parisian butchers, the dull brown of a corner café where the Butcher enjoys espresso with sugar and liquor. Every shot of both movies is a work of art, and indeed, this can be proven by visiting the film’s IMDb page, where the stills look more like brilliant works of photography than they do stills from a film. It’s unparalleled in its beauty for me—the same soft framing and execution of the aforementioned Buffalo 66, and impossibly more beautiful than the wretched 4K face-rape of modern cinema.
The cuts also deserve mention, most of them being accompanied by a gunshot or the Butcher’s vocal emulation of a gunshot. This is a film that simply refuses to kowtow to the viewer in any way whatsoever: its subject matter, its medium, its visceral incestual violence. No compromise. Yet not shock for the sake of shock, but shock for the sake of art. No story should take the viewer into consideration; the viewer is only the witness, just as the reader of the book is. Real savants like Gaspar Noé know this: let the story inside of you out in the most accurate way you can muster, and trust the audience to receive it. Not all of them will in good faith, and not all of them will ever understand it, but the ones that will, will relish it.
Both films are not widely released, and the DVD of I Stand Alone goes for hundreds. I’d encourage you to search out videos online of both Carne and I Stand Alone and watch them in chronological order. And should you wish to support Gaspar Noé, buy one of his later films on DVD or Blu-ray as a compromise—not that I imagine he cares a great deal about you pirating it, as he has gone on to cement himself as the transgressive cinema master in the subsequent years. I plan on writing upon each of his films as I explore the dark recesses of this incredible era of cinema.