9 Fingers (2017)

 

Director: F.J. Ossang

Screenplay: F.J. Ossang

Cast: Paul Hamy as Magloire; Luc Catania as Delgado; Damien Bonnard as Kurtz; Lionel Tua as Warner Oland; Alexis Manenti as Springer; Elvire as Gerda; Lisa Hartmann as Drella; Diogo Dória as Le Capitaine; Pascal Greggory as Ferrante; Rafael Mathias Monteiro as Le barman; Gaspard Ulliel as Le docteur

An Abstract Candidate

 

One man, Magloire (Paul Hamy), is like many in a crime narrative, stuck in a scenario that is doomed for even everyone else, where failure or betrayal means your body is cut up into pieces, and burned for waste disposal. Magloire is barely accepted in the gang he is under, a bystander left home with the two women of the criminal group, Drella (Lisa Hartmann) and Gerda (Elvire), when the robbery of a safe does not turn out well, forcing everyone on a cargo ship with the titular 9 Fingers the unseen figurehead pulling the strings, who gained that name from subtracting ones for punishment. This is already a crime noir scenario few protagonists would want to be involved with, but Magloire is in an even worse situation, that the safe box had radioactive material, polonium.

The scenario on the cargo ship is a deadly one, a bomb having gone off when the material was taken, leaving one of the members of the gang with radioactive sickness, all in an apocalyptic scenario in what could be caused with the quantity they acquired. This is just the tip of the iceberg to 9 Fingers, and outside the film, it is sod's law I am only now prepared for the films of F.J. Ossang, and his work is difficult to access. Ossang is truly a cult figure, in terms of a director from another country, a French filmmaker, who is prolific (least since 1985) and has a fan base, has a distinct style blurring genres, but is despite his career being laced with crime and pulp tropes someone who has never seen access least in the British Isles. Streaming from November 2018 to January 2019 temporarily, I was lucky to have seen the MUBI curated F.J. Ossang: Cinema Is Punk¹, compiling all his feature films up to and including 9 Fingers; sadly, I was not at the right time to appreciate the films.

I was violently hostile to the films in fact, only won over when the films were beginning to be taken off by Doctor Chance (1997), his idiosyncratic full colour crime film which did end the festival positively with finally understanding his work, with Elvire, found here, as the female lead and Joe Strummer of The Clash in a prominent role talking about gonads. 9 Fingers is not conventional either, as all his films were, the genre director on the surface but with fascination for talking and mood, the tropes of noir and crime here, but not the same. The set up is here, where on the Sri Ahmed Volkenson V, the first name of the cargo ship, there is a dangerous substance in the cargo bay, with the added issue that Magloire has fallen for Drella, whose brother he got killed, and develops a jealous hostility in their leader Kurtz (Damien Bonnard) towards him as a result.

Where Ossang caught me off-guard originally is when you have long contemplative films within the genre tropes he used, rather than what you would have presumed from the punk filmmaker/musician/poet with an interest in noir tropes and characters wearing black. Case in point, Magloire's only solace is a senior member of the cargo ship who talks to him, an older man not happy with his position within this, with his books marks by when the authors died. Ossang is a true punk filmmaker in attitude, yet his dialogue with that one character gets into talking about revolution, but also about God and the Devil existing with plans for the world as mankind has freewill. Ossang for 9 Fingers shots this as a chamber piece, a lot of dialogue with the form of genre here in its moodiness. Especially with how striking the film is, Ossang whether working with cinematographer Darius Khondji on Treasure of Bitch Island (1990), before his memorable work for David Fincher on Seven (1995) or with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, or Docteur Chance being his only colour films, presented with a distinct hue in itself, 9 Fingers with Simon Roca as the cinematographer when you get its groove is eerie. It feels it was more indebted to horror films of a certain vintage than a crime film, whether Val Lewton or Vampyr (1932). Not a lot "happens", which is significant, but paranoia aptly seeps in, not surprising when you have a leader named Kurtz in change, slowly breaking down, on a ship where radioactive polonium is there and eventually a mysterious doctor appears on board that takes power.

The film's pulp tone, stuck at sea drifting past countries, is timeless, modernity but, with Kurtz fixated on an ornate map, ageless in form as much as its fixation of black trench coats and glasses is very "punk". The strangeness is emphasised by when Nowhereland is introduced, an alien island which is the straw which breaks the camel's back for the narrative. Befittingly, it adds to the influence of old horror and pulp melodrama when all goes wrong, even if nothing evil is actually on the island, entirely bare and nowhere in the sea. The film's nihilistic tone, and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster's Psychosis Safari on the end credits, is punk, but it is a perplexing mood piece in crime trappings, eventually stuck on a void wasteland of an island, and an unseen gunshot for emphasis concluding before Psychosis Safari kicks in. Ossang's work is the kind, with the right frame of mind, that could win people over, but my original frustrations were clearly from how he undercut the expectations, like a three cord three minute punk song, of something fast, edgy and venomous for something more ethereal. He is, with this film's ink black monochrome appearance, more esoteric, the shots of the moon cutting through the black, and growing tensions (and alcohol consumption) on the ship, providing a compelling air now I am aware of Ossang's tone for his work.

Again, shame F.J. Ossang's work is not easily accessible, his being the kind of work which is "niche" but, with the right frame of mind now, I get into greatly.

Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

 

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1) F.J. Ossang: Cinema is Punk, with a link to the main article, The Paradoxes of F.J. Ossang, written by Adrian Martin and published on November 9th 2018 on MUBI, to present 9 Fingers and Ossang to a new audience.