No Fear, No Die

A French film set somewhere outside Paris. Dah and Jocelyn run cockfights. Both are from the Antilles and living in France without papers. They work in the basement of a restaurant. A man called Ard runs the place and the fights are held in secret. Jocelyn prepares the birds. He feeds them, trims their wings, arranges their feathers, and gives each one a name. Dah runs the business. He collects the bets, counts the money, and deals with Ard. From there the film takes place in the basement. Cages, sand, light, a heater, and animals dead after a fight. Jocelyn begins to come apart. He drinks, does not sleep, talks to the birds, and loses his hold on what is real. There is Ard's wife as well. A closeness forms between Toni and Jocelyn, and Ard sees it. What the narrative is interested in is not cockfighting but being used: both men work in a basement, without papers, at work nobody sees, and the film sets that condition beside the animals'. Dah narrates. The film's voice is his and he is telling it afterwards. The narrative draws on a book. A sentence taken from a novel by Chester Himes stands in the open as its starting point. The image is dark. Nearly the whole film was shot in artificial light in a narrow space and the outside is barely seen. The music is by Abdullah Ibrahim. This is Claire Denis's third film, and the pairing of Isaach de Bankolé and Alex Descas continued in her later work. Isaach de Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig Dommartin and Jean-Claude Brialy are in the cast. Claire Denis directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes dark, distanced French cinema. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take scenes of animals fighting; the narrative shows them directly and holds them long.