Objects of Desire - The Cinema of Claire Denis Review: No Fear, No Die (1990)

October 13, 2013 Reviews, TIFF Film Series, TIFF's Objects of Desire: The Cinema of Claire Denis No Comments

nofearbanner

Cast: , ,
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France | West Germany
Genre: Drama

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s Objects of Desire: The Cinema of Claire Denis which runs from October 11th to November 10th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.

Claire Denis has the unique ability to expose the hidden poetry lurking beneath the seedy layers of any context. She traverses the full extent of what man is capable of in her controversial exploration of the secret world of underground cockfighting in No Fear, No Die, finding men that hide the content of their hearts at all costs and women who have given up on their secret hopes and dreams. We immediately find ourselves in a clandestine world of mystery and bent morality as we set out into the dark autumn night to find the next job, another secret rendezvous with the lost faces of the night, looking for the next crooked connection that will fatten our wallets and starve our souls.

Claire Denis has the unique ability to expose the hidden poetry lurking beneath the seedy layers of any context. She traverses the full extent of what man is capable of in her controversial exploration of the secret world of underground cockfighting in No Fear, No Die…

nofear1Dah and Jocelyn know no other world as they drift through life bereft of the essential connections that keep a soul at ease. They survey the streets to the sound of smoky jazz, always on the lookout for opportunity or danger in their cruel subterranean world. They are skeptical as they are brought to the new venue that will soon be filled with the sounds of drunken heathens and well-trained fighting cocks. It is a decrepit venue, adequate for the needs of their cock-fighting show but hidden among the ruins of an industrial wasteland as lightshows clamber with the obtuse movement and gracelessness of an industrial trash compactor. They have probably worked in better venues and for better percentages before, but the road behind them offers no escape from the ugly necessities of this final job.

Distractions would compromise the integrity of their work and they have no time for hopes and dreams in this opportunistic existence as attachments bring only fear, obligation, and ultimately death.

nofear2The two trainers are constantly sizing up their surroundings with a look of detached bemusement, seemingly unaffected by the ugliness of their world as they concentrate on the task at hand with unwavering single-mindedness. Jocelyn trains the birds with an admiration and respect for the birds’ innate abilities but with a dutiful detachment as each bird is merely fodder for the next fight. There is no cruelty in Jocelyn’s patient methods as a well-trained bird can be the essential means to an end in his constant search for the next big score. He cares for the birds with more attentiveness than he cares for himself. The cocks offer the only unconditional attachment in this contrived underworld as both men stay detached from the people that surround them. Distractions would compromise the integrity of their work and they have no time for hopes and dreams in this opportunistic existence as attachments bring only fear, obligation, and ultimately death. There is only now and the immediate needs of the day, and the smoky voiced Toni treads in worlds she has no business occupying as she too has given up all hope of a life of love and satisfaction of the soul. They all live a life of strict heartless necessity from the fear that allowing others to enter their closed-off existence would bring only heartache and loss, starving their souls of the essential connections that make life worth living.

We watch these two men live in an impossible reality as one can only fool themselves into denying crucial human connections for so long before the barriers they have constructed for themselves come crashing down. One cannot evade the fear of loss for an entire lifetime and remain unaffected by the needs and fears of those that surround them as even a “heartless” trainer of fighting cocks has hidden hopes and dreams. We can only suppress those emotions for so long before they demand reconciliation, sometimes at the cost of our sanity as we learn life’s essential lessons after it is already too late.

87/100 ~ GREAT. Claire Denis has the unique ability to expose the hidden poetry lurking beneath the seedy layers of any context. She traverses the full extent of what man is capable of in her controversial exploration of the secret world of underground cockfighting in No Fear, No Die, finding men that hide the content of their hearts at all costs and women who have given up on their secret hopes and dreams.

Related Posts

My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profile

Matthew Blevins

Director of Home Entertainment & Sr. Staff Film Critic
Behind me you see the empty bookshelves that my obsession with film has caused. Film teaches me most of the important concepts of life, such as cynicism, beauty, ugliness, subversion of societal norms, and what it is to be a tortured member of humanity. My passion for the medium is an important part of who I am as I stumble through existence in a desperate and frantic search for objective truths.