Is the fate of SEUL Irreversible? Gaspar Noé's I STAND ALONE

There's nothing to it. It's the life of a sorry chump. They should write that someday. The story of a man like so many others, as common as can be. It starts off in France, shithole of cheese and Nazi lovers.

Seul contre tous (I Stand Alone, 1998): Hell, I spent six years studying the beauty of French and the next 13 years denying it. Well, that’s until a few years ago when I got a job at a school that partly included teaching twelve-year-olds the language. So it goes... At approximately the same time I’d got hold of a non-subtitled French print of High Tension, trying to understand normal-paced speech, not getting the complete picture but at least figuring out the basics of the plots and discussions.

Now, having somewhat fallen in love again with the frog parley it’s not because of Mireille Mathieu’s soft vocal cords but the vulgar and brutal rambles of hard, cynical and maladjusted middle-aged white men with a whisky voice and beginning beer gut. As with our hero in I Stand Alone: He is the personification of the whole movie, which in its turn is the complete embodiment of one thing only – you’re alone in this world (that is, apart from life being totally pointless and you’re nothing but shit etc, etc, yada-yada...)!

Not much really happens in this film, if you subtract the brutal wife-beating and the cathartic, mental wanderings of our dear protagonist. Instead it’s a slow-paced analysis of what goes on, within and without; and it’s all told in the first person narrative – through the eyes of our main character, our dear butcher. What we’re given from the start is a real downer. The film is a complete display of misanthropy and degradation, though brought to us with a certain amount of black comedy for those who might appreciate it that way. But is it really that a despondent tale? Well, he’s at least out to search for his lost daughter; thus it would seem that the ultimate, turnaround ending of the film brings us some genuine hope – so did director Gaspar Noé ultimately chicken?

Whatever it may be, it’s still a quite good and inteligent little movie. What I like most about Seul, apart from the maddened droning of the butcher, is the sound effects of vocal “booms” and the deranged, beehive murmurs accompanying the deteriorating monologues of the film.

Finally, the butcher is lovely portrayed by Philippe Nahon, who you can also see in a number of other disinherited, bastard films of La France -- first of all I suggest you look for him in the wonderful Haute Tension by Alexandre Aja...