Optic Opiate

The Intruder is still here. I had rushed out last night to catch what I thought was the last screening of Claire Denis’s gorgeous, mesmerizing film at Cinema Village. Looks like the run has been extended–more chances to give yourself over to the hallucinatory and the visceral. And to Grégoire Colin. The movie centers on another man–played by Michel Subor–but there is still ample time to take in Colin’s terrific smoldering presence. Just one of the film’s many hypnotic elements. Dennis Lim at the Village Voice lists some more:

Cinematographer Agnés Godard ensures that almost every image leaves a retinal imprint, even more so the less explicable ones: a heart palpitating in the snow, a sunbathing Louis spooning with his dogs, an infant in a sling beaming up at his father, rainbow streamers billowing off a newly christened ship, two men in knee-deep water hoisting a mattress ashore, a cloth-covered coffin on a forklift.

And here’s a link to Liza Johnson’s interview with the director.