| The Intruder | |
| Native Name: | |
| Director: | Claire Denis |
| Producer: | Humbert Balsan |
| Starring: | |
| Music: | Stuart A. Staples |
| Cinematography: | Agnès Godard |
| Editing: | Nelly Quettier |
| Runtime: | 130 minutes |
| Country: | France |
| Language: |
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| Gross: | $40,853[1] |
The Intruder (French: L'intrus) is a 2004 French drama film directed by Claire Denis. The film had its world premiere in the Competition section at the 61st Venice International Film Festival on 9 September 2004. It was released in France on 4 May 2005.
Louis Trebor, an ex-mercenary living in the Jura Mountains, is suffering increasingly from a heart condition. He abandons his home, beloved dogs, and estranged son in pursuit of a black market heart transplant in Korea before traveling to Tahiti, where he spent time in his youth, in the hope of connecting with a son he has never met.
The film is inspired by a brief essay of the same name by Jean-Luc Nancy.[2] Claire Denis also takes inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson's writing and Paul Gauguin's South Seas paintings.[3] Footage from Paul Gégauff's film Le Reflux is used in the film.[4]
The film had its world premiere in the Competition section at the 61st Venice International Film Festival on 9 September 2004.[5] [6] It was released in France on 4 May 2005.[7]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 29 reviews, and an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The impressionistic narrative may confound the viewer, but Denis crafts wonderfully poetic, dreamlike imagery."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[9]
Amy Taubin of Film Comment commented that "Denis is one of cinema's greatest narrative poets, and The Intruder, the story of an adventurer, is her most adventurous cinematic poem."[10] Jay Weissberg of Variety wrote, "More opaque than her past works and unlikely to garner her new fans, Denis gives near equal weight to reality, dreams, nightmares and premonitions, resisting a traditional narrative in order to question the possibilities of escape within the modern world."[11]
Slant Magazine placed the film at number 77 on the "100 Best Films of the Aughts" list.[12]