The Intruder

After "Beau travail", everybody was waiting for Claire Denis to make a follow-up masterpiece that never arrived. Now it has. Denis makes a quantum leap in this film, an orgy of gorgeous cinematography, elliptical editing and willfully obscure narrative events that feels strange and acts even stranger. There's a nominal plot (derived partly from the Jean-Luc Nancy book of the same name) about a mature man in need of a heart transplant and who seeks a Tahitian son he abandoned long ago; but mostly it's an exploration of the idea of intrusions personal and cultural. It takes a couple of viewings to fully comprehend, and has pacing problems close to the end, but it's still more advanced and gripping than anything else I've seen this year. Miss it at your peril.