No Fear, No Die (S´en fout la mort)

Claire Denis

France 1990 | 90 min | 35 mm | colour | 1:1,66 | Pathé Distribution
French version, Czech and English subtitles

Second full-lenght movie of the director Clair Denis portraits a couple of black immigrants. Story is dominated by rather sad darkness and dynamic observation of the bodies of actors in space.

The movie No Fear, No Die is about a couple of friends, black immigrants in Paris who earn their living by organizing cockfights. In her second full length movie Claire Denis unfolds one of her dominant themes – the theme of foreignness. The uncertain position of main characters in her films, which is intensified by non-psychological “physical” way of shooting, results from their displacement. They are foreigners, people without home, family security or relationship. For the director, a foreigner is someone on the edge, strangely attractive for being different and lonely at the same time. The main characters seem to be acting in similar way, slowly consumed by violence of their occupation. The film No Fear, No Die is for its sad darkness and accentuated dynamic observation of the bodies of actors in space sometimes compared to John Cassavetes’s Ki­lling of a Chinese Bookie.