Carne (1991)

Best movie of this year hands down!

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

"Carne" is a 38-minute movie from almost 25 years ago and the director and writer is Gaspar Noé, who is still pretty known today, mostly for his works after "Carne". I may be a bit biased here because I quite like Philippe Nahon as an actor and he is in almost every scene in this film. He is really good in portraying characters that have a lot of rage ailing under the surface and at some point it explodes and all comes out, like in this situation when he stabs the guy who he thought abused his daughter. Noe and Nahon reunited 7 years later and made a feature film about the same character as in this short film. I really like this feature film and while I have to say this short film was not yet that good, it is still a solid watch, even for a vegetarian like myself with all the butchering scenes. People need to stop being offended so easily by film really. Of course, when people think of Noé, they immediately think of "Irréversible" and the infamous rape scene. However, there is a parallel between that film and this one here. Here also somebody takes very painful revenge for a crime that he suspects somebody did, but it was actually somebody else. Anyway, this was Noé's third short movie and he won quite a few awards here, including a very prestigious honor at Cannes. All in all I recommend it and if you enjoy it, make sure to check out "Seul contre tous".

I would say that this film is disturbing. The brutality is depicted in a very sick way, it's like a psychosis in 40 minutes. In the same time, it is a cruel introspection in human behavior. The scenes are ferocious, starting with the butchery of the horse and ending with the brutal sex scene in the kitchen. Every emotion is exploited to extreme, the frustration of the butcher, the love for his daughter almost incestuous, the rage when he finds out she has been abused, every feeling is so natural and so wrong. This film delivers the truth about human nature in a very honest and brutal way. The message of the film is that one's life can change in a second as a consequence of one's behavior and that the most primitive emotions are the most powerful and can determine one's acting. I'd loved the unique manner of filming, the simplicity and the brutality accompanied with the silence in which only inner thoughts pierce through.

This short film certainly pulls no punches. The story is of a butcher who wrongfully kills an innocent man who he believes has sexually molested his retarded daughter. The film goes onto depict how the butcher serves his time, and returns to life with his daughter in care, and having to come to terms with a life with no future.The graphic opening scenes of a horse being slaughtered, and the full frontal birth of the butchers daughter puts you a brutal frame of mind that stays with you throughout the film.The snappy flow of the film is very direct and adds to its brutality. Consequently alot of ground is covered in the 40 minutes. You are taken in fully with the butchers non-life - particularly after he loses his daughter to social services and his business. His story continues in the excellent film Seul Contre Tous

This is the forty minute film that introduces us to the character of the Butcher, who will later be examined more thoroughly in the feature Seul Contre Tous. In this film, it follows the early period of his life from 1965-1979, but focusing on the late seventies. The first images are of a slaughter of a horse, then the birth of a baby, the Butcher's daughter, who we quickly see growing up each year. The Butcher (played by Philippe Nahon in both films) is a man bitter with the world. He hates many things. His anger comes to a head when a man assaults his autistic daughter. The Butcher then maims the wrong man, and finds himself in prison.This film follows the butcher's life to just after his release from prison, then Seul Contre Tous takes over from there. I watched the films the wrong way about, Seul Contre Tous first. Try and watch this little film first if you can.