À l'intérieur/ Inside (Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, 2007)

Inside (Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, 2007), besides being a painfully gruesome film to watch, offers quite a bit to talk about in terms of gender. More specifically addressed are the concepts of 'manhood' and 'womanhood'. I choose to address something that is more often ignored, the audience experience.

This film, like most 'horror' films, offers a roller coaster ride of suspense and emotions. This particular ride, though, is an exceptionally disturbing one. The audience is always wondering, "why?". There is no attempt to humanize the evil La Femme (Béatrice Dalle), not even the ending which attempts to give a motive paints her as anything more than a monster. The audience is left in a constant state of terror, as Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is fighting for her, and her baby's, lives.

Inside never lets up, and the audience is more or left fighting as hard as Sarah is to stay in the theatre. I viewed this film in a screening in our Film Studies seminar on European Cinema at UBC. As we sat there, horrified at the gruesome unfolding before us, we needed a point to collectively release our anxiety.

This point came in the kitchen seen just after La Femme calls Sarah's knitting needle bluff and bashes her in the head with the toaster. Just when La Femme is lighting up a cigarette, Sarah mysteriously finds an aerosol can of some flammable liquid with which to torch her foes face. Nearly everyone around me, myself included, burst into laughter at this moment.

This may be intentional on the part of the filmmakers, since an equally ridiculous scene occurs soon afterward. The police officer who had been shot in the head, stands up with zombie like dark spots for eyes, and proceeds to attack Sarah. Having already released our particular anxiety, we did not laugh at this, but it is certainly just as absurd as the home-made flame thrower.

A person can only watch so much painful material, before they check out emotionally. In this case, a film becomes a microcosmic case of emotional numbing. Adding these chances that allow for some laughter to serve as a defense mechanism for the audience without taking away from the action or plot, adds to the effectiveness of this film.