Synopsis
Dah and Jocelyn come from Benin, Africa, to coach their rooster, "S'en fout la mort", for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant.
No Fear, No Die
1990 ‘S'en fout la mort’ Directed by Claire Denis
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"An uncaged hen gives the cocks bad vibes."
I think that three exceptional features make for a good enough sample size to designate myself a fledgling Claire Denis fan. Co-written with Jean-Pol Fargeau, I wouldn't have guessed that No Fear, No Die (S'en fout la mort) was only Denis' second feature, given its subtle tonal variance and its remarkably impassive yet humane perspective. The viewer's avatar is Dah (Isaach De Bankolé), a softhearted if pragmatic Beninese immigrant struggling to prosper in France. As perceptive as he is powerless, Dah bears witness to the piteous, steady dissolution of taciturn Caribbean immigrant Jocelyn (Alex Descas) as the pair make an ill-advised go of the unsanctioned cockfighting industry—via a preexisting relationship with an…
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Claire Denis, a master of capturing the male form in motion, deviates from the subject somewhat for her second feature. Instead, “No Fear, No Die” lingers on the image of the cock.
That would be... the male chicken kind.
“No Fear” portrays two black Béninoise immigrants who survive on the scraps earned from training birds for cock fights in the banlieues of Paris.
This film seems to be set almost entirely in underground rooms, smoke-filled lounges or back kitchens. The only breath of outside air comes in the evenings. The confinement mirrors the state of the movie’s two main characters to that of their animals — driven to aggression and confrontation by stasis.
Denis’ inspiration for “No Fear” derived from…
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Denis' second feature drips with history and simmering brutality. It is a mere ninety minutes but it takes its time, building to a slightly overdone climax that still satisfies and capitalises on the film's major themes.
The sense of history is the most immediately beguiling part. Through the film's duration, we feel like we are seeing little but a snapshot, as references to wider lives and shared pasts dominate the characterisation. The world feels lived in and weary, setting the perfect atmosphere - and Denis is the queen of atmosphere. In this film we have a reality that already feels tired out and used up, the perfect foundation for a film about dehumanisation and exploitation.
From here, the narrative follows…
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No Fear, No Due is written and directed by Claire Denis and once again provides clear evidence of her aptitude of vision. The storyline concentrates on two immigrants who train roosters for illegal fighting at an old basement of a shadowy suburban nightclub in France operated by a dishonest businessman, and It lustrously communicates the brutalising effects of colonisation upon the individual as well as of a nation and features some exceptionally ferocious and harrowing cockfight sequences. The movie maintains an oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere and is a fascinating examination of barbarism performed in ostracised society.
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Denis often chooses narratives that can feel quite familiar, and then finds ways to make them feel new through her filmmaking approach. No Fear, No Die, her second film, is perhaps most interesting for having a completely legible plot that hasn’t been elided or broken apart, but still uses the camera to open up new avenues of exploration. What you notice is that she is an economic director in some ways: the information you need to get out of the shot (a person, an object, an emotion) is always apparent in the frame, but her camera is always just oft-kilter; either pushed-in a little too close or just a little too far away. This choice activates our senses in a…
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Claire Denis’ films always ask you to pay attention in such a special way. She doesn’t hide hints in her shots or include dialogue clues. Instead she asks us to pay attention to the characters themselves, to read their emotions, to pick up the nuances in their faces and voices.
No Fear No Die (Denis’ second feature) is all about the margins. The film centers on two immigrants who run a cock fighting ring out of the back room of a trashy suburban disco. They live in the back room of a suburban restaurant. Everything about their lives is back rooms and marginality. In the whole film we rarely see shots of the public. It is all about training roosters…
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Alex Descas and Isaach De Bankolé might be one of my favorite duos in film history. Together they carry Claire Denis' second directorial effort, S'en fout la mort (No Fear, No Die), as Jocelyn and Dah, who emigrate to France from the West Indies and Benin respectively with a plan to make some quick cash by raising roosters for cockfighting. The brutality of the matches (although Denis swears in the end credits that no animals were harmed) is balanced by the meticulous and tender care with which Jocelyn feeds, grooms and trains the birds. Inspired by Frantz Fanon's postcolonialist writings, the film tackles colonialism, capitalism and race, themes that could have been broad but are instead always viewed through Denis'…
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Elegant, spare, and quietly moody. NO FEAR, NO DIE (only the second film, mind you, from Claire Denis) expresses itself with the same deft simplicity of Bresson and the gritty subjectivity of the Dardenne Brothers. While watching I was reminded of the rugged, inhumane conditions of LA PROMESSE (1996), a similar story about non-white immigrants in modern Europe struggling to make enough money to have a better life.
In this film, two black expats are thrust into a dangerous underworld of illegal cockfighting, who survive by staging illegal bets on the animals to sustain their living. The subterranean existence they're forced to live, crammed inside a dark, claustrophobic boiler room, doubles as a comment for the ways blacks have been…
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I’ve never doubted a “no animal was harmed in the making of this motion picture” disclaimer so much in my life. Half the movie is uncut, violent cockfighting! Did this microbudget 1990 French indie call up Industrial Light and Magic for those scenes? No! Bare minimum, a beak was bent!
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inherently cyclical theme-wise but not overwhelmingly cynical. feels very raw within Denis' portrayal of her subjects but everything is framed through a meticulously delineating lens. Alex Descas is phenomenal here.
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Denis creates a cinema of either utmost beauty or total effecting horror, and often these modes are interchangeable in her visual language. In Beau Travail the male body is a canvas, but the film becomes increasingly suffocating as characters go further and further down a rabbit hole of increasingly difficult regimens in the sculpting of those bodies. In Bastards the sensual style that she created around lingering bodies, and intimacy was turned inward into something horrifying as it dealt specifically with sexual assault. Denis is no doubt a filmmaker of bodies, but her films often explore themes around how those bodies navigate a world that isn't exactly fair to them. In No Fear, No Die she goes back to the…