I Stand Alone (1998)

This is NOT your average "movie night with the family" movie, therefore i would not suggest "I Stand Alone" to anyone without an "Open" mindset. Gaspar noé gives us a fast paced, disturbing yet intriguing movie with very rich comments about real-life concepts such as: morality, equality, freedom, fullfiling desires, existantial crisis. I Stand Alone bears similar vibes from "Taxi Driver" and "A Serbian Film", which makes an interesting combination to watch. 10/10

Fmovies: This is Gaspar Noe's deliberately disturbing film of one man's resentment of his own life. It's a highly cinematic monologue of malevolence by a volatile, middle-aged protagonist. The film's brilliance comes from the daring moralism it projects right up to it's startling conclusion. Without giving anything away, this is a mean-spirited, convincingly fiendish love story that sadistically gives it's audience a 30 second chance to leave the theater before things get resolved. A absolutely terrific monster movie for mature audiences only!

Stunning. The writer-director Gaspar Noe's first-person account of a jobless butcher's trip on the down escalator has a lot of superficial resemblances to TAXI DRIVER, but the real unseen hand behind this shattering picture belongs to Louis-Ferdinand Celine, whose scabrous stream-of-consciousness monologues Noe has translated into scorching, nineties angry-white-man-ese. As the butcher's three hundred francs dwindle, and his handgun starts looking more and more appealing, Noe surgically implants us inside the antihero's head using a cascade of hilarious and horrifying nihilistic rants that don't quite resemble anything you've ever heard in a movie.

Noe's ingenuity in reinventing the subjective style of TAXI DRIVER is near-limitless; his array of techniques dazzles, from the Godardian intertitles that break the action like a butcher's cleaver hammering a wooden cutting board, to the deafening gunshots accompanied by digital pans and zooms that throw a Brechtian bucket of icewater on the proceedings whenever they calm down. At times the picture suggests one of Fassbinder's fatalistic fables staged as a William Castle horror movie; in a stroke of genius, Noe conceives of the inevitable crack-up finale not in terms of some novel spin on the image, but as a blizzard of scurrilous language--a head self-narrating to the implode point.

At times, the butcher's and Noe's nihilism seem to be one--and a posturing, collegiate nihilism it can be. And the penultimate section of the movie thunks along as Noe recreates painfully familiar scenes from TAXI DRIVER almost in toto. But the cumulative effect of the movie is lacerating, the way early Scorsese and Toback must have felt the first time out. French-language cinema hasn't gotten this kind of wake-up call since the (lesser) MAN BITES DOG.

I Stand Alone fmovies. The movie shocked me, it made me feel sad, sorry and ashamed.

It shows how a potentially good human being can become bad due to the lack of love in our society. Society and it's egoism, loneliness, selfishness, and individualism affect all humans. Some more than others. This movie is a rather extreme example, but it is definitely what is needed to shake you and make this world a better place.

Some might interpret it as a useless display of bitterness and turn their head to keep on living their "comfortable" lives. Probably most will do that by fear of confronting such a terrible reality. With that attitude nothing will change.

I see the main's characters attitude as the natural consequence of a society without love, a society where everything is given in exchange of something (natural consequence of capitalism). Unfortunately people living afraid and with no love are everywhere. Their acts are a consequence of the extreme individualism and lack of interest of human beings towards others, hence the lack of care for themselves, hence the lack of love.

"Life is a selfish act". Unfortunately our society, or in other words ourselves, act selfishly. As long as that keeps on going the world will be a sad, boring and lonely place.

I have faith in humanity and in living in a world of care, respect, tolerance and responsibility towards the rest. Unfortunately we still have a looooong way to go.

I recommend it to everyone, specially the ones who do not like facing reality and prefer living in "comfort". They need it more than anyone. I give it a well merited 10.

In the last couple years, french filmmaker Casper Noe has created quite a name for himself. With two full length films that are both extreme and psychologically disturbing. "I Stand Alone" is not as disturbing as Noe's "Irreversible", but it still is a bumpy ride that some people might not be prepared for. The main character is the jobless butcher, who is featured in Noe's other films. The film narrates the history of the butcher's life and all the hardships he has faced. It's 1980 in the film, and the butcher can't find a job. He lives with his whiny pregnant girlfriend along with her mother. The butcher's mute daughter seems to be the only person he cares about. Throughout the film, we hear the thoughts of the butcher, which are angry, hateful and horrifying. He's at the point of a midlife crisis, and wants to now live his life for vengeance. Peace of mind through a hand gun, so to speak. He slowly starts to loose his sanity as he endlessly searches for a job, and is turned down repeatedly. The film is very bleak like "Taxi Driver" and "Bad Luitenant" and psychotically tense like "Clean Shaven". Viewers are even warned before the disturbing finale. Let's just say the butcher loves his daughter a little too too much. Casper Noe takes us inside the mind of a man who's sometimes racist, misogynistic and homophobic but is still sympathetic towards the character's insanity. In fact, I felt so bad for the butcher that the film made me almost cry. It has such poetic emotion. I have to say, "I Stand Alone" and "Clean Shaven" are the two films which portray mental illness the most realistically. I say this because I have suffered with mental health problems since I was young, and have been on many medications. At one point of my life, when I was working 70 hours a week and on two medications, I almost had a similar emotional breakdown like in the film. That's why I can identify with the butcher. The film is so gritty and realistic in it's portrait of insanity. Many people will probably find the finale frightening. "I Stand Alone" is a masterpiece of psychological drama and intensity unlike any other film. Casper Noe just may become this generation's Roman Polanski. I can't even imagine what he's going to do next.

Wow, I need to take a shower. This is the kind of film Godard would have made if he'd grown up with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE instead of THE MALTESE FALCON. Based on this and Noe's new film IRREVERSIBLE I'd say Gasper's got a few issues he's hammering out and he's taking us down into the depths with him. It's a very well made film. He uses one repetitious devise that just about gave me a heart attack the first time it was used. I won't tell you what it is, but I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone who suffers from a hyperactive nervous system. If you have a strong stomach and love great filmmaking, though, I'd definately recommend this artistic, sadistic shocker.