Authentic and very unpleasant shocker from French filmmaker Gaspar Noé. A sort of Angry Middle-Aged Man tale, a Taxi Driver without star power, a rough cinematic equivalent of Céline, it pulls us into the life and mind of an unemployed butcher whom we cannot help but find repugnant. The seal is set on that after his return home from a porn theater (we see fully what he sees), when he responds to the nagging of his Queen Bee by pummeling and pulverizing her pregnant belly. If you do not walk out then and there, if you instead agree to go on the lam with the man, the voice inside his head becomes quite literally the voice in your own head ("Love, friendship -- it's all bullshit"), and the seethingly masculine presence of Philippe Nahon (a Gallic Aldo Ray), accompanied everywhere by the almost musical motif of his creaking leather jacket, becomes the center of your universe. It is an uncomfortable experience at best. The camera gaze (although fuzzed a bit by the blown-up widescreen 16mm) is sober and steady, except when given to sudden zooms punctuated with thunderous crashes, as if overtaken by a spasm of rage or frustration. Somehow the steadiness is more unsettling than the spasms. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.