Frontière(s) (2007)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Xavier Gens

Writer:

Xavier Gens (writer)

Release Date:

23 January 2008 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

What are your boundaries?

Plot:

A gang of young thieves flee Paris during the violent aftermath of a political election, only to hole up at an Inn run by neo-Nazis.

Plot Keywords:

Paris | Hospital | Riot | Nazi | Screaming

Cast

Karina Testa	...	Yasmine
Samuel Le Bihan	...	Goetz
Estelle Lefébure	...	Gilberte
Aurélien Wiik	...	Alex
David Saracino	...	Tom
Chems Dahmani	...	Farid
Maud Forget	...	Eva
Amélie Daure	...	Klaudia
Rosine Favey	...	La vieille trachéo
Adel Bencherif	...	Sami
Joël Lefrançois	...	Hans
Patrick Ligardes	...	Karl
Jean-Pierre Jorris	...	Le Von Geisler
Stéphane Jacquot	...	Le policier
Christine Culerier	...	Infirmière urgences

Also Known As:

Frontières (France) (working title)
Frontier(s) (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated NC-17 for extreme sadistic graphic violence and gore.

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

France | Switzerland

Language:

French | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:NC-17 | UK:18 | France:-16 | Switzerland:18 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:18 (canton of Geneva) | Ireland:18 | Japan:R-18 | Australia:R | Argentina:18 | Germany:18 (cut) | Germany:18 (SPIO/JK) (cut) | Finland:K-18 (self applied) | Italy:VM18 | New Zealand:R18 | Portugal:M/18

Company:

Cartel Productions

Trivia:

Banned in Thailand for its violence.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the middle of the movie, when Farid escapes to the basement, he hits Karl in the face with a sledgehammer and knocks him down. Then, in the next scene Karl is sitting at the dinner table, with no mark of that stroke on his face.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Yasmine: My name is Yasmine. I'm three months pregnant. One day, someone said "Men are born free with equal rights". The world in which I live is the opposite. Who would want to be born to grow up in the chaos and the hate? I've decided to spare him the worst.

Movie Connections:

References The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Extremely derivative, but awesome nonetheless

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is credited with revolutionizing the horror genre. Many subsequent films emulated its brutally, psychologically violent approach. And a few subsequent films have just ripped it off.

Accordingly, I've generated a checklist to evaluate whether and how well modern horror films rip off the TCM. (I'm kidding, BTW. I'm making this "checklist" up on the spot.)

Qualification checklist:

--Crazy family of murderers? (Check.)

--Butchery of the dead? (Check.)

--Emphasis on realism and brutality? (Check.)

--A scene where someone thinks they've escaped the family and gotten help, only to discover that the person they're getting help from is also part of the family? (Check.)

So, yes. Frontier(s) definitely qualifies as a TCM rip off. But how good is it? Pretty darn good. Good enough to offend you. Good enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, even though you've seen it a million times before. Good enough, perhaps, to make you cringe. Highly recommended, if that's your sort of thing. Not really as gory as some films, but it certainly has enough brutality to stand among the best of them.

Of course, it takes a lot more to shock us today than it did in the 70s. Accordingly, my quality evaluation checklist bears little resemblance to the shocks from the original TCM.

Quality Evaluation:

--Pregnant women gets punched in the face? (Check.)

--Severed tendons? (Check.)

--Someone gets ruined with a buzzsaw? (Check.)

--Exploding head? (Check.)

--Boobs? (Sort of. I recall seeing a boob for about half a second in the latter half of the film, and earlier in the movie there's a nonsensical, fast-paced sex scene with music video style editing. I can't remember if any breasts are bared in this early scene.)

So, all in all, it's pretty good.

On a parting note. Others have compared it to Hostel and to High Tension; I think these are inappropriate comparisons. The film's structure is much more similar to TCM. Hostel is divided distinctly into two sections, with the first half being a fantasy wonderland and the second half being its seedy underside. High Tension is pretty much one situation happening for an hour and half. Frontier(s), like TCM, is a downward spiral for the first 45 minutes or so, and then an extended climax that maintains its intensity right up until perhaps 30 seconds before the credits roll.