I Stand Alone
Short description
A man known as the Butcher seeks a fresh start after serving time in prison for attacking someone he believed had harmed his mentally handicapped daughter. After placing his daughter in an institution, he moves to the outskirts of Lille with a mistress who promises him a new business. When he discovers she lied to him, he returns to Paris to find his daughter, struggling with his mental state and a lack of resources.
This 1999 French drama and thriller was written and directed by Gaspar Noé, appearing second in his directorial chronology after Carne. The film stars Philippe Nahon as the Butcher, alongside Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain, Martine Audrain, Zaven, and Jean-François Rauger. The production was handled by Les Cinémas de la Zone, Canal+, and Love Streams Productions.
The movie has been well received by viewers and reviewers. It holds a rating of 7.2/10 on IMDb from 28,000 votes and 7.4/10 on TMDB from 604 votes. Film critics gave it a higher score of 7.8/10 based on 25 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- Throughout the film, a first-person voice-over narrates the story. The text was overlaid onto the images after filming had concluded. It was written by the director, screenwriter, and producer Gaspar Noé himself. To better immerse himself in the protagonist's persona, he wrote the text while mostly drunk. The voice clearly conveys barely suppressed anger and frustration, largely caused by the fact that Noé was on the brink of poverty while working on his cinematic debut.
- According to the film's director, screenwriter, and producer Gaspar Noé, the movie was very popular among the French far-right due to the anti-immigration message articulated by the main character. However, all sympathy vanished as soon as it became known that Noé himself was an immigrant.
- The final role of Arlette Balkanis.
- As a teenager, Gaspar Noé visited France, his mother's homeland, for the first time. In Paris, his father told him, "They eat horses here" (consuming horse meat is unheard of in Argentina). This sparked Noé's idea to make a film with a butcher as the main character.
- The warning title card before the film's climax was borrowed from William Castle's thriller "The Tingler".
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
