I Stand Alone

A masterpiece of some kind, though clearly destined to be controversial and contested everywhere it shows—not only for the sexist, racist, and homophobic rage it exposes but also for its brilliant confrontational style. Read full review

I Stand Alone uses a cannon ball to shatter the psychological horror at the heart of human society. Read full review

I Stand Alone has the ghastly stink of a rotting corpse. You can smell the cess as clearly as you can see the blood vessels striking like lightning around the pupils of its malefactor's eyes. Read full review

I Stand Alone, Gaspar Noé's raw, corrosive, and relentlessly provocative response—part companion piece, part critique—to Taxi Driver unfolds with rare force and clarity of vision, rarer still for a director's first feature. Read full review

A film of alarming intensity. Read full review

Bolstered by a fine performance from Nahon, this even merits comparisons with Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Read full review

Feature debuts don't come more audacious than this effort by Gaspar Noe, a filmmaker in his mid-20s obviously determined to shock - and he achieves his goal. The difference is that he also displays real style and intelligence, and this brilliantly controlled effort marks the emergence of a true talent. [14 Sep 1998]

I Stand Alone ("Seul contre tous" in French) is a portrait of a pathetic soul, but it is also a cautionary tale. The butcher cannot be dismissed as a monster, nor is this a creep show. Something like the butcher's story can be found almost every day in newspaper crime reports. Read full review

Strange and unsettling as it is, Noe's clarity of vision makes his film ignite. Like a slammed door or a scream of anger, it slaps you awake. Read full review

The movie's triumph -- if that's what it is -- is in the force of its assault. It takes one man's unbearable truth and bashes us in the skull with it. Read full review

Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone has an exhilaration that comes from looking at life at its meanest so unflinchingly that you can actually be amused by the absurdity of the human predicament. [07 May 1999, p.F6]

Even with this curiously limp resolution, I Stand Alone is unforgettable moviemaking, more muscular than anything seen since Jean-Luc Godard still had some spit and vinegar in him. It may not be palatable, but it's played with convincing fury. [08 Oct 1999]

Between Nahon's pressure-cooker performance and the director's assaultive style (he's fond of brooding long takes interrupted by shotgun blasts of lurching, skip-frame edits and bold intertitles), the film would be an unbearable expression of rage, except that Noé's winking, nearly absurd sense of humor offers a disconcerting reminder of the unreality of it all. Read full review

You won't easily forget Seul Contre Tous and you won't rush to see it for a second time. [21 Mar 1999, p.6]

This pretentious mediocrity from writer-director Gaspar Noe is "Taxi Driver" without depth or any humanizing of the main character. [25 Oct 1998, p.4F]