ABSTRACT
Claire Denis achieved international success in 1988 with her first film, Chocolat, a semi-autobiographical reflection on growing up in colonial Cameroon. Subsequent films further address the dispossessed black (male) subject: S’en fout la mort (1990), an obsessive study of illegal cock-fighting in Rungis, and J’ai pas sommeil (1993), based on mass murderer Thierry Paulin, a gay transvestite African Caribbean with AIDS. In two low-budget art films, US Go Home (1994) and Nénette et Boni (1997), Denis focuses engagingly on relationships between teenage brother and sister. Her style owes much to close collaboration with actors and with camerawoman Agnès Goddard.
