Out of the World (2020) was the second film of the weekend to open on a man carefully cleaning a knife; however, tonally, this film couldn’t be more different to Vicious Fun. It’s immediately made clear that this is not to be a standard-issue villain, but even though director Marc Fouchard humanises his lead character in a series of slow, deliberate ways, he’s no less fearsome, no less repellent, ultimately. It appears that this young man (unnamed until almost the film’s close) is living out of his cab; he spends his spare time making music; he has a succession of regular customers, who seem to like him. This is a brooding character who manages to look aloof and distant, even from the people he has in the back of the cab – despite their physical proximity. That is, until he picks up a young woman named Amélie (Aurélia Poirier). Something about the way she places her head against the car’s door to ‘feel’ the music playing (she’s Deaf) draws him to her. Here, beyond the grim clue of the knife, is the the first real indicator that all is not well with this man: he follows her into the dance academy where he drops her off, watching her. One thing is clear: whatever darkness is crowding him out is going to find an outlet. It is finding an outlet. Through no fault of her own, Amélie acts as a catalyst, becoming the focus of his fantasies and propelling his misogyny for every other woman found lacking into bitter, brutal violence.
So there’s a sense, in watching Out of the World, that you’ve just dropped in on someone already in a downward spiral, but it’s engrossing – even if, and I say this as a woman, it was unsettling to the point of being barely palatable. In presenting this guy as someone with certain vulnerabilities, are we meant to empathise with him in any way? I would say we are. The sombre, even in some regards tender performance of Kevin Mischel at least partly suggests so but the slow and gruelling set pieces featuring female terror are very difficult to excuse. Weighing the close, intimate shots of Leo’s hands, his eyes, against the palpable terror of those he assaults is a big ask, particularly given the style of the horror. This isn’t cartoonish, OTT gore, or splatter; we’re not expected to fantasise all of this away. It’s deliberate, unflinching. In effect, it’s every worst nightmare, and what’s more, the suggestion that Leo does all of these things because he needs to ‘purge’ himself, as if female flesh offers catharsis for the tormented artiste, is – and let’s be honest here – vile. This kind of super-charged incel content is patently not for everyone; I certainly had my moments with it, and found it a big ask in several respects.
Yet for all that, this is a skilfully-directed film; it uses long stretches of silence very artfully, with Mischel communicating a great deal whilst saying very little, in keeping perhaps with There Will Be Blood; other similarities came to mind with, and it’s perhaps obvious, Taxi Driver (1976), although De Niro is positively garrulous (and virtuous) in comparison. Picking up on one of Taxi Driver’s key influences, Out of the World shares some of the traits of Dostoevsky’s tormented souls, such as seen in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man or Notes from Underground. There’s the same dishevelled, disdainful anti-hero, on the verge of mental collapse. Amélie is a wonderfully well-wrought character in her own right, albeit – via her Deafness, and via the fact that Leo prefers her as an abstract concept than as a real person – she gets little means to assert herself or speak up for herself, and that makes her into a rather tragic figure, who certainly doesn’t deserve this man blundering into her life with a set of murderous hang-ups. Whilst there is something of a lull as the film lingers on the attempted courtship, there’s only a little kindness to offset the misery before things are once again heading for their shocking, sad and seemingly inevitable conclusion. Once it’s locked in, the film escalates steadily; one thing I’ll say for this is, by the end, you have quite happily dispensed with any grain of the empathy which we seemed to be encouraged to feel at the very start.
This is not an easy watch and what’s more, it refuses the sort of neat resolution which would answer some important questions about all of this: I could perfectly well understand criticism of the unmitigated, seemingly baseless cruelty on display. But for all that, this is a masterclass in unsettling, upsetting cinema.
Out of the World (Hors du Monde) screened as part of the Glasgow Frightfest weekend (online version) in March 2021.