For all its incidental, documentary-flavoured interest, however, Hors La Vie is unlikely to appeal to anyone lacking a morbid desire to suffer vicariously in a confined space since that, largely, is what the audience must here endure.
Handsome Hippolyte Girardot is French photographer Patrick, bundled into a car by a raggle-taggle assortment of heavies and carted off to a dark hole of a room. In the course of the film, he goes through several transfers of venue (bigger, smaller, lighter, darker), several changes of guard (friendly, indifferent, cruel), and several swings of mood (naked fear, helpless submission, futile rebellion), and makes a bid to escape before finally being released onto the beach by the beautiful bay of Beirut.