I STAND ALONE

France, 1980. A retired horsemeat butcher, finding he believes in nothing but the brute tissue of survival, in sex, eating, and getting paid, abandons his teenaged daughter. He goes to the small French city of Lille with his mistress, a “lover” whom he does not love, even though she's pregnant – especially because she's pregnant. As he stays at her mother's apartment, the man's hope for a new beginnning turns to frustration, bitterness, and mounting violent rage over the trap his existence has become. For the butcher has slaughtered many in his time and he has no problem with using knives, or guns. I STAND ALONE is a sequel to “Carne,” the Gaspar Noe feature that jolted European audiences upon its release although Noe writes that this follow-up can be seen and taken independently. In other words, it stands alone, as does Noe's controversial amoral antihero, in an extreme pyschological portrait done in blood, semen, and tears of existential fear, loathing, and hatred that takes its viewers to the limit. And beyond. (In French with English subtitles)