France, 1980: an unemployed, middle-aged butcher (Philippe Nahon) has a violent argument with his mistress and heads to Paris. Staying at a seedy flophouse, he trudges the streets. Rejected at every turn, he becomes consumed with the idea of taking revenge upon the society that has committed his autistic daughter (Blandine Lenoir) to an institution. But his gun only has three bullets...
Gaspar Noe's feature debut is bracingly provocative: lengthy internal monologues plunge us into the nihilistic, hate-fuelled mind of the central character; France can rarely have looked as seedy or as impoverished as it does in I Stand Alone. Bolstered by a fine performance from Nahon, this even merits comparisons with Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
