Starring Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn as lovers on the run from shadowy forces in Nicaragua, the French auteur’s quasi-thriller is intentionally puzzling – and all pleasure
F
rom a squad of young soldiers stationed in the middle of the Djiboutian desert to a stubborn plantation mistress refusing to abandon her estate amid a brewing civil war, Claire Denis’s films have placed some of cinema’s most alluring stars in some of the world’s most volatile environments.
Stemming from her memories growing up as a child throughout West Africa, the legendary French film-maker has possessed a career-long fascination with the everlasting ripples of colonial oppression and its lingering psychic effects on native communities.
On paper, her 2022 film Stars at Noon seemed to be another one of these stories: a return to the material that launched the 79-year-old director to global acclaim more than three decades ago. But when the lights inside the Lumière auditorium finally went up after the film’s glitzy world premiere at Cannes, critics noted that the immediate reaction to Denis’s movie was instead a confused and puzzling silence.
