The Invader – L’Envahisseur (2011)

Directed by: Nicolas Provost | 95 minutes | drama | Actors: Isaka Sawadogo, Stefania Rocca, Serge Riaboukine, Dieudonné Kabongo, John Flanders, Tibo Vandenborre, Ken Kelountang Ndiaye, Bernard Van Vooren, Jean-Louis Froment, Laurence César, Katsuko Nakamura, Toni d’Antonio, James Kazama, Carole Weyers, Hannelore Knuts, Noureddine Farihi, CinSyla Key, Brahim Waabach, Alexandra Xuereb

After many short films and video installations, the young and talented Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Provost makes his debut with his first feature, ‘The Invader’. The attempt has been successful, although the film – whose style is mainly reminiscent of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ‘Biutiful’ – occasionally falls below the mid-range. The start is there, but Provost will have to prove itself again and again in the coming years to call itself an accomplished maker of feature films.

The premise of the film is extremely interesting: from the first shot we see African refugees washing up on a nudist beach, then we follow one of them – Amadou – as he tries to get a foothold and when this fails, we tell them on the human traffickers into whose hands he has fallen. While this could be the synopsis of one of the many revenge films, director (and co-screenwriter) Provost takes a different approach. He shows the refugee’s side, not determined by anger but full of courage to save it in a world that turns against him in many ways. The feelings he harbors seem genuine, because Provost takes the time to show the failures, although the film occasionally goes awry. Being half a creator of video projections and half of short films (of which he delivered no less than nineteen between 2000 and 2011,) it seems as if the director has trouble choosing between the two in his first major project. The film can be called unbalanced, but also daring, stylish and full of vision.

‘The Invader’ had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where Provost previously visited Sundance, San Sebastian, Locarno and Berlin with his short works. A director who dares to shock and to show a different world, but who is not always as directing in his attempt to do so, is a considerable advance.