Brutality Mostly Mental In Extreme `I Stand Alone'

Movie review XXX "I Stand Alone," with Philippe Nahon, Frankye Pain, Blandine Lenoir, Martin Audrain. Directed and written by Gaspar Noe. 93 minutes. Varsity, today through Thursday. No rating; includes brutality and graphic sex scenes. No one under 18 admitted.

This relentless French-language jolt of nihilism isn't quite as violent as its film-festival reputation would suggest. It's strong stuff, but no slasher movie.

Ever since "I Stand Alone" first appeared at festivals last year, it has been compared with such art-house shockers as "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover," though it's essentially a head trip.

The brutality is mostly in the mind of its down-and-out protagonist, a nameless 50-year-old butcher played by Philippe Nahon, who plans more vengeful acts than he actually performs. Misogynistic, penniless and all but homeless, he imagines bloody retaliations involving various people he blames for his self-created troubles.

The soundtrack is one continuous rant against the woman he has most recently impregnated and attacked (Frankye Pain), her frightened mother (Martin Audrain) and the various people who won't give him a job. He saves his tender feelings for a mute daughter (Blandine Lenoir) who has been institutionalized, though his pity for her leads to thoughts of mercy killing.

As Nahon plays him, the butcher is vividly genuine in his contempt for most of humanity, whether he's muttering about conventional morality, the inevitability of loneliness, the frustrations of pornography, or he's complaining that "death opens no door." At perhaps his lowest point, he declares that "it's all useless, even children," and decides that his daughter is better off dead.

It's easy to make fun of such extremes. Woody Allen did it brilliantly in "Play It Again, Sam," in which he tried to date a verbose existential doomsayer who announced she had other plans - committing suicide - for her Saturday night.

But it's not easy to shake off the mood "I Stand Alone" creates. Somehow the rant never becomes simply monotonous, partly because of the unexpected contexts in which it turns up. The ending, in particular, which uses the soothing notes of Pachelbel's Canon in the most startling manner, takes the film into another realm. In its concentration on one corrosive point of view, it suggests "Taxi Driver."

The 35-year-old Argentine-born writer-director, Gaspar Noe, does such an impressive job of communicating the butcher's mental state that you feel as if you've been physically assaulted. He uses explosive editing tricks and soundtrack blasts to pummel you into a state of tension that's apparently designed to simulate what the butcher is feeling. (The movie is a kind of sequel to his short film, "Carne," which also deals with the frustrations of a butcher.)

It's a good thing "I Stand Alone" is not much longer than an hour and a half. Two hours would probably be unbearable. Yet, in its present state it's a fascinating plunge into the lower depths. Descend at your own risk.