Claire Denis's Haunting Neocolonial Drama

"Somewhere in West Africa, armed men keep careful watch over a construction site and remote compound where white expats live. The guards, all of them Black, are stationed at posts that tower over the area, a position from which they become omniscient observers. They communicate through melodic calls. If you're not paying attention, it can be easy to miss how these uniformed agents function as a kind of chorus in Claire Denis's haunting new neocolonial drama, The Fence."

"Based on Bernard-Marie Koltès's allegorical play Black Battle With Dogs, The Fence follows a tense evening between Alboury, a West African man searching for the body of his recently deceased brother Nouofia, and Horn, the white manager of the construction site. Nouofia worked for Horn, and Alboury knows that his brother's body is somewhere on the grounds. The encounter between the two men stretches from late evening into the next morning, revealing the racist impulses that define relationships between white settlers and Black natives on the continent."

"The Fence is, comparatively, a minor Denis film. It builds on the themes introduced in her 1988 feature Chocolat and revisited in her 2009 war drama White Material, from the colonizer's fascination with and feelings of repulsion for "the Other" to racialized psychosexual dynamics. And it also showcases her mastery of atmosphere and her keen interest in the human body."

"Working with the French cinematographer Éric Gautier, Denis fills The Fence with arousing close-ups of bare chests, clenched hands, and wet eyes. But perhaps the most compelling thing about The Fence is how it applies Denis's ongoi"

Armed men watch a construction site and remote compound where white expats live, communicating through melodic calls while standing in positions that let them observe everything. The story centers on Alboury, a West African man searching for the body of his recently deceased brother Nouofia, and Horn, the white manager of the site where Nouofia worked. Their encounter stretches from late evening into the next morning and reveals racist impulses shaping relationships between white settlers and Black natives. Horn also worries about his deputy Cal, an impulsive engineer, and about the arrival of his wife Leonie, an English nurse. The film uses close-ups of bare chests, clenched hands, and wet eyes to build an intense atmosphere and emphasize racialized psychosexual dynamics.

Read at The Nation