The title of Claire Denis’s newest movie takes on a literal and figurative dimension. There’s an precise fence that borders a distant, dust-covered building web site. On one aspect lies Alboury (Isaach de Bankolé), an area villager demanding the physique of his useless brother who was allegedly killed in a office accident, and on the opposite is Horn (Matt Dillon), the exhausted foreman attempting to impede his request as he juggles his girlfriend’s arrival to city and the tetchy building supervisor accountable for the employee’s demise. Nevertheless, as to be anticipated from this consciously metaphorical work, there are different invisible fences at play: those between guilt and innocence, colonialism and subjugation, power and worry. All of them collapse by movie’s finish, as to be anticipated.
Tailored from the play “Black Battles With Canine” by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Denis — alongside “Stars at Midday” co-writer Andrew Litvack and Suzanne Lindon, daughter of two-time Denis collaborator Vincent Lindon — largely embraces the supply materials’s Beckett-esque premise whereas accenting it with expressionistic prospers, equivalent to a photorealistic CGI nightmare of a canine tearing by human flesh, or heat colours contrasting towards shadowy areas. A lot of the motion takes place on the border of the positioning, with the tempestuous climate blanketing the emotional house that opens between an evasive center supervisor and a principled sufferer. Denis fills that house with need and terror till they nearly turn out to be interchangeable.
Alboury’s refusal to compromise his easy request worms its manner below the pores and skin of Horn, who shortly realizes the restrictions of condescending faux-diplomacy and Western bargaining ways, particularly when deployed towards somebody steeped within the language of oppression. In the meantime, Cal (Tom Blyth), the supervisor, is falling aside below the load of his actions; at one level, he cathartically sings alongside to Midnight Oil’s “Beds are Burning” in his automobile (“How can we dance when our earth is turnin’? / How can we sleep when our beds are burnin’?” goes the refrain) to speak his emotional state. (It’s certainly one of two on-the-psychological-nose soundtrack cues in “The Fence,” the opposite includes Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”) Blyth’s impatient physique language and sneering supply will get a exercise when he’s tasked with shepherding Horn’s girlfriend Leonie (Mia McKenna-Bruce) from the airport. Epitomized by the heels she wears to navigate the West African panorama, Leone is unprepared for the tough setting, which Cal exploits with condescending glee. His attraction to her turns menacing as he resists changing into the third wheel in Leone and Horn’s relationship, particularly contemplating the sturdy risk that Horn will promote him out to Alboury’s village.
Brooding sensuality programs by the ambiance in “The Fence,” which partially compensates for the movie’s stilted staging and clumsy, thesis-underlining dialogue. (Whether or not the latter will be attributed to the supply materials or the variation, I’m unsure.) Denis’s newest is at its sharpest when it leans into the director’s aptitude for capturing the tactility of converging our bodies, like when a mentally and bodily shaky Leone leans into the arms of Horn bathed in shadows, or Horn and Cal dealing with off like lions, with their blocking decided by their fluctuating ethical righteousness. Hypocrisy and turpitude run by the postcolonial earth like oil, and it’s lastly bursting by to the floor the place Horn and Cal, who mockingly work in above-ground constructing initiatives, erroneously believed it was secure.
Presumably befitting his character’s position within the authentic play, De Bankolé will get far much less to do than his white counterparts. (He principally ominously gazes within the route of Dillon.) However his steely resolve makes an impression anyway, particularly when Alboury’s mere presence begins to be perceived as an act of aggression. His easy motivations — to return his brother to the village — stand in sharp distinction to the comparatively indirect ones shared by the opposite three characters. Is Cal drawn to Leone as a result of he covets the standing her validation confers, or is it as a result of she’s a menace to his relationship with Horn, which may be greater than platonic? Leone’s life in Britain was most likely precarious and insecure, however her impulsive resolution to relocate to a far-flung, constrained space in West Africa with a person she barely is aware of suggests deeper instability. Horn’s company-man place, which presents relative energy however not complete authority, intimates self-preservation as a cause to guard Cal from Alboury’s implied accusation, however a shared secret from their previous might additionally undergird his actions.
The movie’s performances and script trace in direction of these motives, however Denis declines to supply a whole image, preferring they chaotically swirl inside the liminal house of the development web site. Enclosed by limitations and guarded by African guards who name out to one another like a Greek refrain, the headquarters that home Horn, Cal, and his group operates as a vacuous black gap of containers and tools. Greed and exploitation run rampant in a spot the place neighborhood was designed to thrive. Denis underscores this concept when Leone, who dons a pink costume late within the movie, traverses the expansively darkish house; cinematographer Éric Gautier frames her in a chilling extensive shot that creates the impression the realm will swallow her entire. Whereas Horn and Cal have turn out to be too comfy dwelling of their privileged refuge, Leone clarifies its disjunctive place inside the surrounding setting simply by embracing her position as a conspicuous presence.
McKenna-Bruce’s efficiency can often really feel imprecise in “The Fence,” nevertheless it shines when she makes use of her character’s nescience to show the violent rot inherent within the worksite. Dillon, alternatively, depends too closely on a picket, over-indicating supply, particularly within the dramatically pointed scenes between him and De Bankolé, which usually neutralize the movie’s relative ambiguity. Blyth stands out largely as a result of his character harbors essentially the most inside battle, however his vacillation between bullying patronization and pitiable wreck generates tonal whiplash all the identical.
The deterministic narrative drive of “The Fence” in the end proves to be the movie’s undoing. In some unspecified time in the future, the movie ultimately goes by the motions till its inevitable downbeat climax, at which level its dramatic shortcomings turn out to be troublesome to disregard. Denis’ greatest work options an emotional core that worms its manner into the unconscious, bypassing simplistic explanations and the restrictions of language, and deepens the political or style framework. “The Fence” suffers from the absence of such ardour, which leaves her textured imagery, although intermittently affecting in a vacuum, with out a lot impression.
Grade: B-
“The Fence” premiered on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It’s at present looking for U.S. distribution.
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