The Fence: Movie Review

One fence, one conversation and very little of anything else.

The one thing that is instantly clear about The Fence is that it is based on a play. It takes place in one location with a limited number of characters. The whole movie is a conversation between Alboury (Isaach de Bankolé), a brother of an African man killed on site of a British construction company, and on the other side of the fence, Horn (Matt Dillon), the supervisor of the British construction company.		2025 Directed by: Claire Denis Screenplay by: Claire Denis, Suzanne Lindon, Andrew Litvack Starring: Matt Dillon, Isaach de Bankolé
Alboury just wants his brother’s body back, Horn is going to turn that simple request into a contentious conversation. Based on the 1979 play called Black Battles with Dogs, director Claire Denis, has attempted to revitalize this play, add some new locations (like picking Horn’s wife up at the airport) and revamp a character – Horn’s aforementioned wife Léoné (Mia McKenna-Bruce), and presumably add in some more modern takes on colonialism. The main problems are that the movie is supposed about colonialism and racial differences and social injustices, but it’s not about that at all. Those themes are barely present, it’s as if having a setting of a British construction company in a west African country is enough, and the doesn’t expand on those themes at all. Having said that though, what this movie is about it is still interesting. Alboury just wants his brother’s body, for a proper burial back home. A simple enough request. He’s very well dressed, very proper, polite enough. Horn immediately turns this civil conversation into a one-sided debate. “It’s not appropriate to turn up at this hour, come back to my office in the morning,” and invites him for a drink, and then puts on this air of righteous anger when Alboury says nothing. He even starts throwing stats at him and how this company is below average for accidental deaths. Alboury says nothing to that as well. Horn starts negotiating and offering him money to leave. Alboury only wants the body. At first, I’m thinking why doesn’t Horn just give him the body and then all of this is over. But eventually it becomes clear that Horn does not have the body, does not know where the body is and does not know what happened to the now deceased man, but he has a few suspicions about what happened. And thus as any good company man will do, he just keeps talking and talking hoping something will stick to the wall. Matt Dillon is fantastic here. Playing the epitome of a construction supervisor and then after hours his patience is stripped to nothing and starts turning his contempt to those on the same side of the fence. I love how the screenplay gives hints to the lack of knowledge of the situation that Horn has, and then drops a few more hints about what assumptions he has made before the truth eventually gets revealed. The Fence drags out its minimal character development and plot and its lack of more fundamental themes is noticeable. But it does still say a few interesting things in an interesting manner.