Denis' filmic preoccupations focused into a single point and then shattered into fragments. A shotgun shell in images. A work of sheer domination and empathy, where the idea of "intruding" or "being the intruder" is put through the ringer and tested to its limits as a metaphor. Everything and everyone is an intruder. Existing is simply a matter of forever encroaching upon foreign territories. Reaching into the void, alone, and invading it, or letting it invade us.
Denis vision, filtered through Godard's camera and Quettier's editing, is restless. A presence not entirely of this world, scanning across bodies, landscapes, etc. as though trying to absorb as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Traversing countries, crossing borders, in search for a center that may not even exist. How does one grasp onto what may not be real in the first place? An idea, but even less solid. How would we expect to be received as an unwelcome guest in someone else's house.
I think it's telling that Denis manages to imbue each country she shoots in with its own tactility. The bustling cities in France, against the open grasslands of the Franco-Swiss border, against the glassy industrial quality of Busan, the tropical beaches and forests of Tahiti, or the icy and isolated rooms and hills of Eastern Europe/Russia(?). Each area stands on it's own but bleeds into each other as though they were themselves all a part of a larger tapestry. Each image is indelible but presented in a manner that is surprisingly even-handed. There appears to be a very egalitarian approach to the edit. As beautiful or striking (or whatever adjective you wish to use) an image may be, Denis' approach is to let the images speak their peace and then toss them off.
The constant sense of unease that permeates the film as a whole, a sense of dread, creeping inside of us. The onset of disaster looming on the horizon. The intruder may be good but may also be a harbinger for hell, in all its forms. We may be the intruder in our own bodies. A life lived knowing that we are not who we think/wish/etc. we were. We are incomplete striving to be. To achieve solace and/or order within ourselves despite always being the intruder.
