35 Shots of Rum (Denis, 2008)

There's a quality to Denis' work that is rarely commented upon, as far as I've seen anyway, and that's her generous approach to empathy. Not simply for the main players in her narratives or docs, but for all people. She is a woman who's gaze does not show preference, it merely wanders and lingers, it allows all those within its frame(s) to exist and live either with dignity or struggling to achieve dignity. Here, it's more the former than the latter. 

In what may be her simplest, or certainly the slightest, narrative she's made, she defines her characters as those who deserve our most respect. These are people who work not to achieve some higher status or fortune, but simply for the pleasure of working. To exist within the means of their living. We are not asked to identify with those who are so different from us - a superhero, a mercenary, a spy, etc. - these are men and women who work jobs some might think unnecessary, but they find fulfillment in the connections made and earning a living. 

Denis' vision as always been one of inclusion, of all people, all sexes, but rarely has her view ever been so gentle. So completely understanding of the stillness and subtlety of those she's shooting. Often described as a filmmaker who's focus on "the body" is paramount to her perspective and in understanding her films. But as stated above, it isn't her gaze upon the bodily form(s) as much as the space she gives her performers to exist. The form is simply allowed to be, it does not have to be in motion or posing. Though one could certainly say this is the influence of Ozu on her specifically within this film, but it exists outside of it. 

Perhaps it was all just building up inside of her after years and years of making films that are darker and more oblique. The desire to return to something simpler, calmer. One typically associates building emotions to that of anger and rage or sadness, one does not typically explode after holding happiness within after _____ period, but for Denis this does feel like something cumulative. A sigh or a long exhale after years of making films that can feel almost oppressive in their emotional and conceptual weight (to me at least). It was time for her to at least release and make a film that simply breathes.

The Intruder (Denis, 2004)

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.

Trouble Every Day (Denis, 2001)

This will perhaps be less of a critical look into this than the previous Denis' I've written of as I find this film to be perhaps a bit too overwhelming for me, personally. I can still recall the first time I watched this, during my edgy "New French Extremity" and "South Korean New Wave" (or whatever the 2000s were referred to as) period and not getting this at all. It was too slow, felt like it's style meandered too much, the minimal amounts of dialogue, the discontinuous editing style - it was just too "arty" for me, at the time anyway. I had a very similar reaction towards Antonioni's The Passenger the first time I watched that film. It took years for me to return to Denis. I believe it was one of her later films that I finally picked up her again and even then it took watching more of her until she finally clicked with me. 

It didn't help that at the time I my perspective of "NFE" was colored more by films like Irreversible, Martyrs, and Frontier(s) than the work of filmmakers like Grandrieux or the early work of Bruno Dumont. I expected gore and torture and cruelty the, in a phrase, "pushed the limits," of what I could handle. Not that I could ever label myself as a gore-hound, but when you approach a work like this with that kind of style in mind, you're bound to be disappointed in one form or another, as I was. The air of sadness overwhelms throughout, and melancholia wasn't what horror was about to me, at that time. It lacked the kind of visceral energy, the propulsion that other films I was watching at the time utilized in order to build up tension and keep me engaged. 

I could not comprehend that horror was meant to do anything beyond scare you or to instill fear inside of a viewer. And to achieve this outside of gore or some sort of violent act seemed absurd to me at the time. But like all things, we age and our tastes (hopefully) develop and are refined. The melancholia was revealed to me and I understood it's vantage, at least as well as I can understand anything that is. The longing for something, someone, that understands you, but you know that when you do reveal yourself to them fully, the result will only be pain - perhaps just for you, at worst, for both. There is no solution where both parties wind up happy. And the hunger is never satiated. 

There's a disenchantment with the world around oneself. Vincent Gallo's Shane Brown character is a man in search for a cure for what he craves. Money, love, sex - these are all things that one can obtain quite easily. It's not difficult to acquire things that society tells us will make us happy, these things will supposedly solve all our problems. If so why are we left empty when we have them? What is it that drives us to seek these things we know bring us no pleasure beyond the moment we're engaged in them. We are but vampires walking around in search of the next fix. In the dark we shall meet; and in the dark only one of us shall leave. 

I desire to be engulfed by you, to become subsumed in you. I know we are no good but we shall forever be intertwined. Our desire and pain, twisted together. There is beauty in this harmony but there is no stopping the eventual collapse. Caught in a vice-grip of each other, this is a suffering bound to last a lifetime. Hence why one must burn it down, in hopes of starting anew - and knowing that the result will be the same. Existing - it's trouble every day. 

I would be remiss to not mention the score by Tindersticks. To this day it is probably still my favorite score they've done for Denis. A beautifully tender but minimalistic series of pieces that sound so loud in a film so quiet. Erotically tinged danger that builds until that silence returns. A climax that rings out so the sound of nothing overwhelms at the conclusion. The lilting title-track makes my eyes swell every time I hear it.