I Stand Alone (1998)(French Title: "Seul contre tous")

If you've ever wanted to be dragged naked through the stench of rotting animal carcasses at a slaughterhouse, if you've ever wanted to be fucked by a runny, puss-filled syphilitic cock, if you've ever wanted rancid menstruation flowing down your throat, then "I Stand Alone" is the film for you.
 
A non-stop tour through the tortured brain of a particularly unsavory character, the film oozes and flows with the most hateful, bigoted, homophobic and putrid dialogue to come across the screen since the 70's. It's Fassbinderian take on a life so stagnant and festering that it becomes rank. This is a violent, sordid, distasteful, and humorless film. I can't imagine why anyone would want to view it, except that it is, of course, a masterpiece.

The main character, an aging, mentally unstable former butcher who crawls through the rancor of his own putrid mental ramblings, is mainly heard in overdub. Like the diatribe of a decaying mind, his thoughts stream ceaselessly throughout the film, in the overdubbed voice in his head and we, in America,  read them, in subtitles, like rummaging through the most fevered and repugnant novel ever   written.

It's like the poetry of rotting flesh.

The film is so forceful and so troubled that we cannot look away. The bitterness swells on screen and we see violence and gore eminent, but we cannot turn away. The youthful innocence of a sheltered mind enters the film and we see the building of climactic rage and prurient lust begin to soak the edges of the screen. It's unpleasant and numbing and acrid. And we cannot look away.

I refuse to divulge the ending, as it is unexpected and  perhaps, a bit of a misstep. I will say Director Gaspar Noe commits two sins, one cinematic and one mortal sin. His film travels down a straight and narrow tunnel, searching endlessly, not for the light at the end, but rather the bottom of the endless cavern, the void at the end of the void  and then takes a sharp turn into stunning confusion and jagged reality. It's beautiful and bizarre. It's unexpected. And when it seems almost as a cop-out at first, when the harsh reality sets in and begins to gel, we realizes it's as chaotic and offensive as all that has come before. It is sheer wild genius and crazed, rabid mindlessness. It's delicate and intricate and bitter and putrid. It's frightening and bold.

"I Stand Alone" is one of the most harsh and archaic films I have seen come out of the 90's. It's bitter hopelessness and anarchy driven despair will leave you with a disgusting bitter taste in your mouth. You  have been warned.

Notes: Released in US in 1999.

Literal translation of Frnch title is "Alone Against All."

The film contains one scene of pornogrphic sex and one at least one scene of intense violence.

Report Card

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A

Special Effects\Make Up: A

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+