Perhaps Denis' most ambitious film, L’intrus is offered as a response to contemporary philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s book of the same name whose reflection on belonging and otherness was prompted by the author's recent heart transplant. While Nancy examines the experience of a corporeal intrusion by a stranger, Denis' film responds by juxtaposing north and south, reality and fantasy, female and male, violence and reverie in an elliptical story about a man wandering the globe in search of a replacement heart and the young man who may be his unacknowledged son.

Nancy is both a Northeastern French city (and hometown of Eric Rohmer) and the last name of Jean-Luc Nancy, the celebrated philosopher who has exerted a major influence on Denis’ recent work. A fascinating combination of direct interview and fiction, Denis’ short is her first attempt to grapple with Nancy’s ideas about intrusion and otherness and an excellent introduction to L’intrus.