The Cinematheque

Imported 35mm Print

“This mysterious object may be Denis’s most gorgeous film.”

Dennis Lim, Village Voice

Perhaps French cinéaste Claire Denis’s most abstract and elusive film, L’intrus is a daring masterwork of formal invention—and irresolvable storytelling—that erases the already porous line between inner and outer life onscreen. Improbably adapting French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s memoir/​treatise on surviving a heart transplant, L’intrus is a hyper-elliptical portrait of a reclusive, ailing mercenary (Michel Subor) who embarks on a globetrotting journey—imagined, remembered, transpiring?—to secure a black-market heart for himself in Korea, and reunite with his long-lost son in Tahiti. The ​“intruder” of the title has manifold meanings; most hauntingly, it’s a metaphor for colonization. The oneiric, arresting visuals prove why perennial Denis DP Agnès Godard is among the elite cinematographers working today. Print courtesy of Institut Français, thanks to the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.