The Invader by Nicolas Provost

In a visually striking and unsettlingly scored first sequence we meet clandestine immigrant Amadou, washed up on European shores after journeying from an unnamed African country. An attractive white woman is sprawled naked on the beach, and then strides towards the water to meet the gaze of the uninvited incomers; one wonders if the opening close-up of her genitalia is a hint at sexual incursion, an allusion to rebirth, or perhaps a tease for viewers expecting something rather avant-garde.

The Invader is in fact an edgy, gripping thriller which incorporates many of the familiar immigration story ingredients (unscrupulous traffickers out to exploit their charges, the inevitable trap of unsanitary working and living conditions, the guilt-ridden unease felt towards these outsiders), channelling them into a provocative social drama about foreignness, exclusion, and the illusion of the European dream.

The whole narrative is carried by the powerful, magnetic screen presence of leading actor Issaka Sawadogo (also the star of Exoticore), who conveys a volatile energy veering between charismatic exuberance and uncontrollable fury. Amadou, built like an ox and blessed with an optimistic, resilient nature, ends up as an illegal labourer in Brussels where he attempts to carve out a better existence. Yet he is quickly disenchanted, and after a sickly companion is cruelly tossed out of their shared lodgings he trashes his boss’s car in an impulsive, violent episode before fleeing into the night. We follow the dazed stranger through the seedier side of the Belgian capital - all neon-flooded sex shops, dismal gambling houses and grubby take-aways, starkly filmed alongside panoramas of an alienating urban skyline.

Renewed hope appears briefly in the form of the beautiful Agnès (Stefania Rocca), a high-class businesswoman whom Amadou determinedly pursues and pins his dreams of a new life upon. However they are worlds apart, and when it becomes clear that she has no intention of continuing their erotically charged affair his amorous attentions turn into obsessive stalking. Further rejection by a callous modern environment leads him into ever darker layers of his nightmarish limbo, as he is driven to the brink of insanity by impotent rage. The exotic hero thus becomes a dangerous criminal, the demonised Western cliché of the black man’s primitive aggression.

As the protagonist’s transformation reaches its final dramatic climax, The Invader’s closing shot returns to an almost playful, wilful ambiguity - an abrupt question mark about the filmmaker’s intentions. What mostly remains with the audience however is a bold, convincing piece of storytelling which confirms Provost as one to watch.

By Jude Lister