Director: Claire Denis
Writers: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Jean-Luc Nancy
Photography: Agnes Godard
Music: Stuart Staples
Editor: Nelly Quettier
Cast: Michel Subor, Gregoire Colin, Yekaterina Golubeva, Beatrice Dalle, Florence Loiret Caille, Alex Descas, Bambou, Lolita Chammah
Not surprisingly, perhaps, director and cowriter Claire Denis likely intends many different things by the title of this ponderous and obscure but enrapturingly beautiful picture. Based on an essay by the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, it’s the story of a one-time mercenary, Louis Trebor (Michel Subor), in search of literally a new heart and thereby somehow his long-estranged son. The heart is thus an intrusion into his body, he wants desperately to intrude on his son’s life, and the movie itself is an intrusion into the essay (which I don’t know). Early in the show, living in a cabin on an isolated mountain of the western Alps, Louis kills and disposes of the body of a random nighttime intruder into his cabin. So on so forth. The knife is an intrusion on that body. Scraping electric guitar music by Tindersticks principal Stuart Staples.
In fact, thinking of it some more, the title can be taken as an intrusion into cinema history. It’s stupefyingly generic. There are other movies or TV miniseries called The Intruder from 1933, 1953, 1962, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1999, 2005, 2010, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2024, and 2025. I don’t think I’ve seen any of them. The most famous might be the 1962, directed by Roger Corman and starring William Shatner, Frank Maxwell, and Beverly Lunsford. The 2019 horror show gets pride of place in the IMDb search returns. I’m not saying all these intrusions are conscious on Denis’s part, especially not the other pictures. But I bet a bunch of them are. It’s just the way she rolls.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, director and cowriter Claire Denis likely intends many different things by the title of this ponderous and obscure but enrapturingly beautiful picture. Based on an essay by the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, it’s the story of a one-time mercenary, Louis Trebor (Michel Subor), in search of literally a new heart and thereby somehow his long-estranged son. The heart is thus an intrusion into his body, he wants desperately to intrude on his son’s life, and the movie itself is an intrusion into the essay (which I don’t know). Early in the show, living in a cabin on an isolated mountain of the western Alps, Louis kills and disposes of the body of a random nighttime intruder into his cabin. So on so forth. The knife is an intrusion on that body. Scraping electric guitar music by Tindersticks principal Stuart Staples.
In fact, thinking of it some more, the title can be taken as an intrusion into cinema history. It’s stupefyingly generic. There are other movies or TV miniseries called The Intruder from 1933, 1953, 1962, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1999, 2005, 2010, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2024, and 2025. I don’t think I’ve seen any of them. The most famous might be the 1962, directed by Roger Corman and starring William Shatner, Frank Maxwell, and Beverly Lunsford. The 2019 horror show gets pride of place in the IMDb search returns. I’m not saying all these intrusions are conscious on Denis’s part, especially not the other pictures. But I bet a bunch of them are. It’s just the way she rolls.
That’s me saying I was frustrated, again and as usual, with Denis’s cryptic narrative style. Our man Louis, for example, is given as an ex-mercenary in all the synopses I’ve seen. But I missed the detail or scene in the movie that lets us know this is so. I’m not saying it’s not there, but it glided right past me both times. I can put it together later of course and see that, right, the way he handles the nighttime intruder, so coldly, brutally, and efficiently, the way he seems to be most come alive when he’s handling his bloodied knife. Why, he’s nothing but a mercenary son of a bitch for sure. But the scenes with the intruder are also decidedly dream-like, in Denis’s stylization, and that’s how I took it until I started looking into it further online later.
Denis’s worldly exoticism might also get the better of her here in some ways, with stunning locations in the Alps, Korea, and Tahiti. I mean, OK, sure, it makes sense that an experienced mercenary would know how to get around in places like Tahiti, where he sets up a simple shelter in the jungle forest. But we are veering close to secret agent thriller stuff with all this globe-trotting. It’s arguable Denis is able to have it both ways. White Material is an example of an effective horror thriller set in colorful Africa. Here, in spectacularly beautiful settings from the Alps to Tahiti, we have a “Cat’s in the Cradle” dad who can’t accept he won’t be forgiven. As with 35 Shots of Rum there’s quite a bit of emotion packed into the premise, but the movie then seems to be furiously backpedaling from it into a pristine place of aesthetic purism.
I wish I were better, but I’m too often impatient with the movies in the top 100 of the 21st-century list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? They too often seem to me to be turgid exercises in narrative obscurity with admittedly great cinematography and soundtracks. I can live in the abstract on the swirling edits and calculated palettes and on the large cast here with interesting faces and Staples’s distorted electric guitar for perfect textures of menace and foreboding. I just wish it weren’t all so much work to unpack, especially when it seems to be daring deep emotional themes. The cast is big, the faces interesting, but the characters are only semi-distinct ciphers.
I’m not sure what I should be expecting anyway when the main character is a mercenary and obviously a hardcore survivor. He is in Korea to secure a heart for himself on the black market. Everything he does is beyond my ability to imagine for myself or anyone I know. Buying a heart on the black market? Are you kidding? Louis is never anyone to admire or even particularly like, indeed he is the classic antihero and a pathetic one, as they often are, with a woefully infantile level of self-awareness exposed in the story of trying to connect with his son. I’m no one to consult on Denis, however. I thought The Intruder was better than Beau Travail but not as good as 35 Shots of Rum, an unusually warm movie for Denis. I still think her best is White Material. But it might be fair to say she’s made the best picture called The Intruder, although the competition there does not look stiff.
Denis’s worldly exoticism might also get the better of her here in some ways, with stunning locations in the Alps, Korea, and Tahiti. I mean, OK, sure, it makes sense that an experienced mercenary would know how to get around in places like Tahiti, where he sets up a simple shelter in the jungle forest. But we are veering close to secret agent thriller stuff with all this globe-trotting. It’s arguable Denis is able to have it both ways. White Material is an example of an effective horror thriller set in colorful Africa. Here, in spectacularly beautiful settings from the Alps to Tahiti, we have a “Cat’s in the Cradle” dad who can’t accept he won’t be forgiven. As with 35 Shots of Rum there’s quite a bit of emotion packed into the premise, but the movie then seems to be furiously backpedaling from it into a pristine place of aesthetic purism.
I wish I were better, but I’m too often impatient with the movies in the top 100 of the 21st-century list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? They too often seem to me to be turgid exercises in narrative obscurity with admittedly great cinematography and soundtracks. I can live in the abstract on the swirling edits and calculated palettes and on the large cast here with interesting faces and Staples’s distorted electric guitar for perfect textures of menace and foreboding. I just wish it weren’t all so much work to unpack, especially when it seems to be daring deep emotional themes. The cast is big, the faces interesting, but the characters are only semi-distinct ciphers.
I’m not sure what I should be expecting anyway when the main character is a mercenary and obviously a hardcore survivor. He is in Korea to secure a heart for himself on the black market. Everything he does is beyond my ability to imagine for myself or anyone I know. Buying a heart on the black market? Are you kidding? Louis is never anyone to admire or even particularly like, indeed he is the classic antihero and a pathetic one, as they often are, with a woefully infantile level of self-awareness exposed in the story of trying to connect with his son. I’m no one to consult on Denis, however. I thought The Intruder was better than Beau Travail but not as good as 35 Shots of Rum, an unusually warm movie for Denis. I still think her best is White Material. But it might be fair to say she’s made the best picture called The Intruder, although the competition there does not look stiff.
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