No Fear, No Die (1990)
Working from a script co-authored by Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau, No Fear, No Die directly confronts the personal politics of race, capital, and especially masculinity, as they are marked by colonisation and its pathologies. While plot matters little in the work of Denis, the film follows the tragic consequences of colonised black masculinity in the story of two black French immigrants who survive by staging cockfights. Isaach De Bankolé plays an African named Dah, from Benin, while Alex Descas stars as Jocelyn, from the West Indies. Jocelyn is silent for much of the film, while Dah narrates the narrative action in a flat voiceover reminiscent of that found in early Bresson films, especially Pickpocket (1959). Relentlessly bleak, uncompromisingly honest, and unfolding like a harrowing early Dardenne brothers film, No Fear, No Die is a film that provides a glimpse into the dangerous and inhumane living conditions of many non-white male immigrants in modern France.