"After trips to space (2018's High Life) and Nicaragua (2022's Stars at Noon), the French director Claire Denis has returned to more familiar territory: post-colonial west Africa. Denis, who grew up in several Francophone African countries, has made several movies that inquire into the troubled heart of such places, and now reaches into that well again for her new film, The Fence."
"In some ways, the film is hallmark Denis, flinty and strange and sometimes inscrutable. But it is also a disappointment, a leaden film whose points Denis has made more convincingly elsewhere. The Fence is based on a 1979 play by the late Bernard Marie-Koltes called Black Battles with Dogs. It tells the story of three white people living in a protected construction zone in a rural part of an unnamed west African nation."
"A fatal accident, or something more sinister, has just happened on the work site and the brother of the deceased comes to claim the body. At the same time, the young wife of the site's foreman has arrived from abroad to stay for a while, rippling the waters of this treacherous, masculine ecosystem. Denis has updated the setting and added some modern geopolitical context, but the theatrical origins of The Fence are felt throughout, to bad effect."
"This is, perhaps, one play that should have stayed a play. In Denis's version of events, the foreigners are British and American, rather than French. Matt Dillon plays Horn, who is running the vaguely described construction project until a Chinese concern moves in and takes things over. His lieutenant is a friend from his oil industry days, Cal (Tom Blyth), who is bored and rash and may have done something terrible to a Black worker on the site."
Claire Denis returns to post-colonial West Africa for The Fence, a film adapted from Bernard Marie-Koltes's 1979 play Black Battles with Dogs. The plot centers on three white workers in a protected construction zone where a fatal incident prompts the deceased's brother to arrive and claim the body. The foreman's young wife arrives from abroad, unsettling the masculine, treacherous site. Denis replaces French outsiders with British and American characters and introduces contemporary geopolitical elements, including a Chinese company takeover. Performances include Matt Dillon as Horn, Tom Blyth as Cal, and Mia McKenna-Bruce as Leonie. The film's theatrical origins remain evident and undermine its impact.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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