Frontière(s)

“Xavier Gens’s Frontière(s) visits familiar terrain: Texas Chainsaw Massacre à la française. A group of Muslim youths with a bag of stolen money flee riot-torn Paris for la France profonde, only to fall prey to an inbred community of cannibalistic pig farmers led by an ancient, fairly bonkers ex-Nazi patriarch, who still clings to dreams of a Fourth Reich. Things get truly nasty in this promising scenario, but the execution is rote. Still, in its opportunistic way the film does get at current French racial anxieties and paranoia over Sarkozy’s new order.” (Gavin Smith) “There is an explosion of genre film happening in France right now, a number of young directors chafing for the chance to break out of the old ways and prove their stuff. Gens is clearly one of the leading names to watch in the movement.” (Todd Brown)