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Most people envision the same thing when French cinema brings up some weird drama with nonsensical storylines, where everyone seems to have a cropped haircut and stares into nothingness, deep in thought. Perhaps not as famous is exploitation cinema. It comes with Zombies, torture, skinning, and all the weird things that those of us who lack a certain sensibility enjoy. Frontier(s) is most definitely a part of the latter trend. Even with short haircuts, there is nothing wistful here.
A group of young people are trying to leave the suburbs of Paris while a riot takes place due to an increase in right-wing sympathy in a presidential election. Yasmine (Karina Testa) is an unwanted pregnant woman in the early stages of pregnancy. To add to her woes, her brother seems to have gotten shot by the police during a riot and her estranged boyfriend does not appear to care for anything other than himself.
Even though they despise each other, the four remaining members of the gang travel to Holland through an obscure motel. The first two members who arrive are drawn in by the beautiful women who appear to run the motel and get into a group sex scenario, much against the protestations of one of them who claims he has a girlfriend. They fail to pay attention to the Swastika and Eagle tattoo on the lower back of one of their ‘lovers.’
Things get really ugly pretty fast as they get caught in scenarios reminiscent of The Descent, the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Green Room before finding themselves stuck in the mines beneath the motel. At that point, it becomes downright brutal.
As soon as our last girl and her sort of boyfriend show up, everything is off, and with the arrival of the patriarch of this horrendous family, things take a turn from bad to bloody in no time.
Unfortunately, Frontier(s) is similar to those copycat films that exist, however, it never seems to scale the heights of any of the films it emulates. Frontier(s) is excessive and indulgent in its gore, but its plot isn’t really coherent. There is pure cannibalization and reproduction of folks they deem as impure, yet the Nazi occupation with purity is at odds with such. It is excessively pseudo-intellectual and painfully simplistic in trying to mediate the conflict between left and right ideologies. And, even though Frontier(s) tries to reside in the benchmark of political reality fiction, the periphery allusions to the riots constantly fail to integrate with the core substance of the film. Perhaps worst of all, the characters are not crafted in such a way that they are either interesting or likable, as fall into the same trap most of the narrative did. Being one-dimensional.
Disappointingly, Frontier(s) is a bit misleading in regards to the rest of the filmography coming from Second Sight. The inclusion of bonus features may appear to be generous, but the interviews and making of the documentary leave you to question whether the filmmakers knew what they were talking about, because there really isn’t much to say.
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