From 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.
A storm has just rolled through town when we’re first introduced to Trish (Margaret Qualley), a disillusioned American journalist stranded in a Covid-stricken Nicaragua turning tricks in order to survive. Realising her goodwill with the local government is running thin thanks to her persistent coverage of brutal extrajudicial killings, she ignites a romance with Daniel (Joe Alwyn), a mysterious British petrochemical consultant she sidles up to one night at a hotel bar, in the hopes he will provide her with a feasible way out of the country.
Though Denis had already planned to move the film away from the turbulent Sandinista-era setting of Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel of the same name, pandemic-related production delays also saw the director choose to include elements of Nicaragua’s stringent health restrictions directly into the fabric of the movie. As Trish aimlessly floats between flophouses and fast-food joints across town, the scores of masked strangers crowding her route only amplify the shadowy mood of a city where everybody has a secret they’re desperate to hide.
That strange and elliptical atmosphere will be familiar to anyone who has had the pleasure of watching a Claire Denis movie; a byproduct of the film-maker’s actor-centric approach to storytelling that favours the innermost carnal desires of her characters above any conventional notions of narrative. Qualley, who trained as a ballet dancer before making the jump to acting, glides through each scene with a careless and forlorn physicality, while Alwyn on the other hand – who landed the gig after fellow British heart-throbs Robert Pattinson and Taron Egerton passed on the role due to scheduling conflicts – carries a pathetic imitation of confidence that droops over every frame.
The casting of these two Hollywood stars, both with skin as pale as ghosts, was a point of friction for critics at Cannes who questioned whether the film was just another foregrounding of white hardship against the backdrop of the global south.
When it’s eventually implied that Daniel is in the country on more nefarious business – disclosed to Trish by a character known simply as “CIA Man” (played with menacing glee by Benny Safdie) – it becomes clear the duo’s existence as foreign interlopers is hostile and unwanted. “Just wait until American tanks come and crush your hopeless country,” Trish haphazardly snarls to one pencil-pushing Nicaraguan official after he denies her a new passport. “You’re going to be boiled alive.”
The pair’s burning fixation with each other is what propels much of the movie forward, their impulsively horny decisions wreaking havoc wherever they tread, despite knowing their time together must soon come to an end.
This impending doom threatens to boil over in the film’s stunning climax: a hypnotic dance sequence set underneath the fuchsia glow of a near-empty nightclub. Scored to a dreamy jazz piece by Denis’s frequent musical collaborators Tindersticks, the camera observes two lovers tangling as if it’s their last day on Earth, drifting in and out of frame before finally breaking apart. Who knew the end of the world could feel so romantic?
Stars at Noon is streaming on Prime Video and SBS on Demand in Australia and available to rent in the UK and US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
