Frontiere(s)

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Frontière(s)

December 1st 2008 03:16

It is Paris, 2002, and the city is in the middle of rioting as the conservative candidate for the Presidency is polarising the people. A small band of young thieves with a bag of stolen cash plan to escape to Amsterdam, but Murphy’s Law intervenes and governs the rest of their short lives.

Sami (Adel Bencherif) is shot and mortally wounded. His pregnant sister Yasmine (Karina Testa) and Alex (Aurélien Wiik) take him to hospital emergency, but he dies in Yasmine’s arms. Authorities are aware they are criminals, so Alex and Yasmine hop it. Meanwhile Tom (David Saracino) and Farid (Chems Darmani), who are several hours ahead, decide to spend the night at a rural inn some distance from the city. They arrange for Alex and Yasmine to join them and re-group.

Frontiere(s) Karina Testa and Amelie Daure

Karina Testa as Yasmine and Amelie Daure as Klaudia

The inn turns out to be a domestic hellhole; a clan of murderous cannibals lead by Geisler (Jean-Pierre Jorris), an aging (neo) Nazi. It becomes apparent his two sons Karl (Patrick Ligardes) and Hans (Joël Lefrançois), his daughter Gilberte (Estelle Lefébure), and extended family members Goetz (Samuel Le Behan) and Klaudia (Amélie Daure) have been killing off passersby for years, whilst they attempt to create a pure race. Despite her swarthy features the patriarch Le Von Geisler is certain Yasmine’s unborn baby is perfect family fodder, and her mates make a great celebratory meal.

Aurelien Wiik as Alex

Writer/director Xavier Gens has made a tour-de-force of unrelenting grimness. It’s an assault on the senses that will appeal darkly fabulous to hardened horrorphiles. It's familiar stuff baring much similarity to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Hostel, but despite these trappings, Frontière(s) - which translates as “border(s)” – is an excellent entry in the tenuously-titled horror sub-genre known as “torture porn”. Of curious note the director made the French-Hollywood co-production Hitman the same year.

Frontiere(s) Jean-Pierre Jorris and Estelle Lefebure

Papa fuhrer Geisler (Jean-Pierre Jorris) and daughter Gilberte (Estelle Lefebure)

Samuel Le Bihan as Goetz

The production values on Frontière(s) are top notch. Terrific camerawork and cinematography, all stylish filth and grimy glamour, fantastic special effects (mostly lots of blood-letting, but also great prosthetics and very convincing CGI which is used sparingly), effective soundtrack (apart from the incongruous use of a sugary English-language ballad over the end credits), and superb production design and art direction; more filth and grime.

Chems Dahmani as Farid

Performances are all excellent, but honours have to go to Karina Testa’s harrowing deliverance, which takes the audience on the full arc of human shock and trauma. However whether her unborn baby would escape unscathed following the physical and psychological trauma unleashed upon her mother is another question, but writer/director Gens wants to make a point: he begins the movie with images of the baby within the womb and Yasmine’s voice-over saying “My name is Yasmine. I'm three months pregnant. One day, someone said ‘Men are born free with equal right’. The world in which I live is the opposite. Who would want to be born to grow up in the chaos and the hate? I've decided to spare him the worst.”

The other stand-out role is that of the SS-adoring papa cannibal played with chilling conviction by Jean-Pierre Jorris. His German language might not be spot on, but he certainly looks and acts the part with sadistic aplomb, I’m sure Atrocity is his middle name.

Tom (David Saracino) finds himself in the grim thick of it

Another nitpick I have (which applies to many movies, not just this one) is when characters receive slamming punches or kicks to the face, or are pistol-whipped, yet sustain only “minor” injuries. The reality is just one of those blows would be enough to knock most of your teeth out, concuss you and leave you unconscious, or dead. But characters usually just spit out a mouthful of blood, get up and get back to rumbling. It’s a minor gripe though, as for the most part the ultra-violence in Frontière(s) is very realistic and well executed, more so than movies that have been compared to it, such as the Hostel and Saw movies.

Joel Lefrancois as Hans

But a lot of what makes Frontière(s) work so well is the tone and atmosphere; drenched in the abject darkness of true nightmarish horror. The movie is definitely a horror movie for hardened horror fans. Those who are easily disturbed, offended or are squeamish, stay clear of this border, it pushes boundaries. What it lacks in sub-text and subtlety it makes up for in throbbing, splattered raw (de)human experience.

Frontiere(s) Samuel Le Bihan and Joel Lefrancois

Goetz and Hans salt up a long pig ...

In the States the movie was rated NC-17, and subsequently was disqualified from screening at last year’s "Horrorfest: 8 Films to Die For", which it was originally slated to play at (I must add that compared to the other crap that gets selected for the Horrorfest Frontière(s) eats them for breakfast!). There are movies that are more graphic, but few that combine the level of atmospheric intensity with the hard-gore so successfully. In Australia it has been given an R (restricted to 18 an over), with a warning it contains "High level horror violence and torture themes". Yeah, that'd be about right.

... and prepare another one for dinner

A big circular saw makes an appearance in the movie that will cause cheers among the die-hards, as does a thoroughly wince-inducing scene involving large pincers and a man’s Achilles’ tendon (I felt similar to the appalling pencil stab in the ankle in The Evil Dead). There’s also a bang-on point-blank high-powered rifle head-shot (a la Romero), a nasty steam-room death, plus various stabbings and beatings. Indeed Frontière(s) takes you to the edge of comfortable horror, then slaps you hard in the face, and asks, “Had enough?” For the True Believers the answer is a resounding “Give it to me! I can handle it!” Xavier Gens has delivered a sleazy, sordid, gruesome, ghastly … and sensational piece of work. Frontière(s) is the ticket, now cross the line.

Karina ... our beloved final girl

Here's an American trailer that over-stylises the movie, but still captures much of the movie's raw, blistering, bloody horror:

Here is a French trailer shown in the UK that seems to turn it into a perverse black comedy:

Frontière(s) DVD is courtesy of Madman Entertainment, many thanks!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

1 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

December 1st 2008 04:04

I think you may need a mop and bucket for this one.

Chop, chop, splat, splat.

Not my style. Though it does look stylish.

Perhaps in a few years I may watch it. After it becomes passe.

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