As a Frenchwoman who spent most of her childhood in West Africa, Claire Denis is no stranger to the social and racial tensions colonialism left behind on the continent. From her breakout feature, Chocolat, to works like White Material and her masterpiece, Beau Travail, she’s explored those tensions through enigmatic stories about white characters living in a land that doesn’t necessarily want them anymore.
That sentiment is front and center in The Fence, a sequestered and highly theatrical drama set on an African construction site that feels much more like a colonial outpost. The remote, dust-filled locale is overseen by Horn (Matt Dillon), a world-weary American foreman who, in the course of one very long night, has to deal with both a possible murder cover-up and the arrival of his British girlfriend, Leonie (Mia McKenna-Bruce), in hostile territory.
Adapted from the 1979 play by Bernard-Marie Koltès (a celebrated French…
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