The title of Claire Denis’s latest film takes on a literal and figurative dimension. There’s an actual fence that borders a remote, dust-covered construction site. On one side lies Alboury (Isaach de Bankolé), a local villager demanding the body of his dead brother who was allegedly killed in a workplace accident, and on the other is Horn (Matt Dillon), the exhausted foreman trying to impede his request as he juggles his girlfriend’s arrival to town and the tetchy construction manager responsible for the worker’s death. However, as to be expected from this consciously metaphorical work, there are other invisible fences at play: the ones between guilt and innocence, colonialism and subjugation, strength and fear. They all collapse by film’s end, as to be expected.
Related Stories
Adapted from the play “Black Battles With Dogs” by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Denis — alongside “Stars at Noon” co-writer Andrew Litvack and Suzanne Lindon, daughter of two-time Denis collaborator Vincent Lindon — largely embraces the source material’s Beckett-esque premise while accenting it with expressionistic flourishes, such as a photorealistic CGI nightmare of a dog tearing through human flesh, or warm colors contrasting against shadowy spaces. Much of the action takes place at the border of the site, with the tempestuous weather blanketing the emotional space that opens between an evasive middle manager and a principled victim. Denis fills that space with desire and terror until they almost become interchangeable.
Alboury’s refusal to compromise his simple request worms its way under the skin of Horn, who quickly realizes the limitations of condescending faux-diplomacy and Western bargaining tactics, especially when deployed against someone steeped in the language of oppression. Meanwhile, Cal (Tom Blyth), the manager, is falling apart under the weight of his actions; at one point, he cathartically sings along to Midnight Oil’s “Beds are Burning” in his car (“How can we dance when our earth is turnin’? / How can we sleep when our beds are burnin’?” goes the chorus) to communicate his emotional state. (It’s one of two on-the-psychological-nose soundtrack cues in “The Fence,” the other involves Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”) Blyth’s impatient body language and sneering delivery gets a workout when he’s tasked with shepherding Horn’s girlfriend Leonie (Mia McKenna-Bruce) from the airport. Epitomized by the heels she wears to navigate the West African landscape, Leone is unprepared for the harsh environment, which Cal exploits with condescending glee. His attraction to her turns menacing as he resists becoming the third wheel in Leone and Horn’s relationship, especially considering the strong possibility that Horn will sell him out to Alboury’s village.
Brooding sensuality courses through the atmosphere in “The Fence,” which partially compensates for the film’s stilted staging and clumsy, thesis-underlining dialogue. (Whether the latter can be attributed to the source material or the adaptation, I’m not sure.) Denis’s latest is at its sharpest when it leans into the director’s aptitude for capturing the tactility of converging bodies, like when a mentally and physically shaky Leone leans into the arms of Horn bathed in shadows, or Horn and Cal facing off like lions, with their blocking determined by their fluctuating moral righteousness. Hypocrisy and turpitude run through the postcolonial earth like oil, and it’s finally bursting through to the surface where Horn and Cal, who ironically work in above-ground building projects, erroneously believed it was safe.
Presumably befitting his character’s role in the original play, De Bankolé gets far less to do than his white counterparts. (He mostly ominously gazes in the direction of Dillon.) But his steely resolve makes an impression anyway, especially when Alboury’s mere presence begins to be perceived as an act of aggression. His straightforward motivations — to return his brother to the village — stand in sharp contrast to the relatively oblique ones shared by the other three characters. Is Cal attracted to Leone because he covets the status her validation confers, or is it because she’s a threat to his relationship with Horn, which might be more than platonic? Leone’s life in Britain was probably precarious and insecure, but her impulsive decision to relocate to a far-flung, constrained area in West Africa with a man she barely knows suggests deeper instability. Horn’s company-man position, which offers relative power but not total authority, intimates self-preservation as a reason to protect Cal from Alboury’s implied accusation, but a shared secret from their past could also undergird his actions.
The film’s performances and script hint towards these motives, but Denis declines to provide a complete picture, preferring they chaotically swirl within the liminal space of the construction site. Enclosed by barriers and protected by African guards who call out to each other like a Greek chorus, the headquarters that house Horn, Cal, and his team operates as a vacuous black hole of containers and equipment. Greed and exploitation run rampant in a place where community was designed to thrive. Denis underscores this idea when Leone, who dons a red dress late in the film, traverses the expansively dark space; cinematographer Éric Gautier frames her in a chilling wide shot that creates the impression the area will swallow her whole. While Horn and Cal have become too comfortable living in their privileged refuge, Leone clarifies its disjunctive place within the surrounding environment just by embracing her role as a conspicuous presence.
McKenna-Bruce’s performance can occasionally feel imprecise in “The Fence,” but it shines when she uses her character’s nescience to expose the violent rot inherent in the worksite. Dillon, on the other hand, relies too heavily on a wooden, over-indicating delivery, especially in the dramatically pointed scenes between him and De Bankolé, which generally neutralize the film’s relative ambiguity. Blyth stands out largely because his character harbors the most internal conflict, but his vacillation between bullying patronization and pitiable wreck generates tonal whiplash all the same.
The deterministic narrative drive of “The Fence” ultimately proves to be the film’s undoing. At some point, the film eventually goes through the motions until its inevitable downbeat climax, at which point its dramatic shortcomings become difficult to ignore. Denis’ best work features an emotional core that worms its way into the subconscious, bypassing simplistic explanations and the limitations of language, and deepens the political or genre framework. “The Fence” suffers from the absence of such passion, which leaves her textured imagery, though intermittently affecting in a vacuum, without much impact.
Grade: B-
“The Fence” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Want to stay up to date on IndieWire’s film reviews and critical thoughts? Subscribe here to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers.
