"Her worst feature and it's not even close, The Fenceseems to be an inexplicably faithful adaptation of a bad play, Bernard-Marie Koltès's Combat de nègre et de chiens. Written in 1979 and first directed on-stage by Patrice Chereau in 1983, this is a musty allegory of colonialists getting their comeuppance. In artificial-bordering-on-Brechtian English, we're quickly introduced to construction foreman Horn (Matt Dillon), standing across that titular fence from Alboury (Denis staple Isaac de Bankolé), whose brother has died on-site."
"Looping back a bit, the film re-introduces Cal earlier in the day picking up Horn's just-arriving wife Leonie (Mia McKenna-Bruce) from the airport. Denis straps an iPhone to the right-side passenger window and observes in real-time as he drives her back; in an era of endlessly fake-looking rear-projection driving shots, it's really refreshing to see Blyth really driving, his arm unforcedly jostling in time with the road."
"In the 1999 mini-series Storm of the Century, a malevolent stranger (played by noted Canadian Colm Feore) shows up outside Stephen King's longtime fictional community of Castle Rock and repeatedly says "Give me what I want and I'll go away"-but he doesn't tell anyone what he actually wants, instead telepathically manipulating people into suicide and other grisly events until finally unveiling his ask."
Storm of the Century (1999) features a malevolent stranger who arrives in Castle Rock, telepathically manipulates residents into suicide and grisly acts, and repeatedly demands an unspecified ask before finally revealing it. The Fence appears as an inexplicably faithful adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltès's Combat de nègre et de chiens, staged as a musty allegory of colonialists receiving comeuppance. The plot centers on foreman Horn across a fence from Alboury, whose brother died on-site; Alboury insists on receiving the body and repeatedly repeats that demand, and the story implies he may have killed a dog belonging to Horn's assistant Cal. A single long iPhone-mounted driving shot captures convincing real-time motion; otherwise the production feels artificial and stagebound.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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