No Fear, No Die

Awash in ’90s style and nocturnal atmosphere, Claire Denis’ rarely screened second film No Fear, No Die plunges us into a seedy underworld on the outskirts of Paris. One night from the back of an anonymous truck emerges Jocelyn (Alex Descas), a hard-up but stoic and elegant man from the Caribbean, with his Beninese friend Dah (Isaach de Bankolé) in tow. The two have been summoned to suss out a potential arena for clandestine, illegal cock fighting at the behest of a louche restaurateur in ill-fitting Dior (Jean-Claude Brialy), an old acquaintance of Jocelyn’s mother. Amid this ramshackle no man’s land, buried within the labyrinthine confines of the off-the-highway restaurant cum nightclub complex, they live among the roosters that they fastidiously feed, train, and brutally fight for money. “No fear, no die” is the name of a prized white bird that Jocelyn grows attached to, the thought of its death increasingly unbearable ― not unlike his solitude, disillusionment, and longing for home. (TIFF)