2019 Directed by Bertrand Bonello
Haiti, 1962: A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends - never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.
There are any number of horror films about “voodoo” magic and its colonialist underpinnings — Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 “I Walked with a Zombie” remaining the most formative example — but only Bertrand Bonello’s take on the subject includes an oral presentation on the life and times of Rihanna. It would be foolish to expect anything else from the firebrand director behind “House of Pleasures” and “Nocturama,” whose films see history as less of a forward march than an uneasy churn; his work obfuscates clearly delineated temporalities in order to emphasize that while everyone may live in the present the past is never really dead.
As its title suggests, “Zombi Child” finds Bonello taking that idea to its logical and most…
#Cannes2019
Zombi Child is a pretty nutty film. The film burns incredibly slow and thrives on leaving its audience in the dark. There is an intense mystery throughout as we follow two stories throughout the film, and we don’t quite understand what either of them mean or are leading up to, yet the images are great and the mystery and stories are incredibly compelling. The film concludes with a genuinely terrifying climax, using very unique and eerie sounds, treatment of sounds, and some fantastic parallel editing to create an incredibly chilling and sensorily overwhelming scene that relieves the great tension, yet (in the film’s favour) doesn’t solve all of the mystery that was building for almost the entire runtime. There…
After the godardian doomed revolutionaries of Nocturama, Bonello asks for a reconsideration of the very concept of revolution - in a classroom of all places. This takes me back to what Régis Debray said in his book about May '68: the counterrevolution was so successful that it's nearly impossible to have a revolution in Europe now, but the African revolutionary movements are well and alive. Perhaps one of the biggest changes in European politics that Marx didn't anticipate was the turn towards social-democracies. Of course, this kind of regime can only successfully exist in a post-industrial society, i.e. in a society that has withdrawn from the industrial competion for the lowest cost of production. This current state of affairs where…
Came expecting something close to Tourneur, got yet another exercise on half-baked social commentary and tedious inflation of narrative tension, what some like to call “post horror” nowadays. Bloated and boring, even if polished and well organized.
J’allais faire une autre joke sur la quantité de films de zombies à Cannes, mais là on parle.
Almost impossible for me to give a comprehensive review of new Bertrand Bonello’s feature Zombi Child after first viewing due its multilayers of subtext. There are so much to unpack, there are so much to think about in cross-genre tale. While he showcases his staging abilities (he’s still one of the best directors in terms of using music and dances) and cinematic fetishes (shots of mannequins are here too), Bonello depicting daily routine and rituals of sorority girls and presenting his commentary on history, consequences of revolutions, French (and not only) colonial past and cultural appropriation and drawing connection between all these topics. Decision to end film with biopic-like title card is baffling, but still didn't spoil whole impression from film.
Truly unity of form and meaning.
Художественная вариация истории реально существовавшего гаитянского персонажа. Бертран Бонелло украсил настоящую историю дополнительной сюжетной веткой внучки Клервиуса Нарцисса. Кино долго разгоняется и поначалу выглядит непонятным: параллельные линии не очень-то складываются в одну историю. К финалу Бонелло немного увлекается вуду-психоделом, но в целом бодрый саунд и харизматичные актёры тащат.
Came expecting something close to Tourneur, got yet another exercise on half-baked social commentary and tedious inflation of narrative tension, what some like to call “post horror” nowadays. Bloated and boring, even if polished and well organized.
understanding the specific context of your suffering is more important than weighing the depth of your pain against that of others.
Прихотливо смонтированная история Клервиуса Нарцисса, реально существовавшего гаитянского черного зомби из 60-х и его придуманной внучки-школьницы из современной Франции. Есть пара неплохих хоррор-эпизодов, в том числе с явлением барона Самеди, но в целом это либеральное европейское кино про расовые стереотипы и верность своим корням, несколько невнятное и путаное, но не лишенное шарма. Хотя я пристрастен - мне нравится, как Бонелло снимает кино, будь то про геев-модельеров, горе-террористов или проституток начала прошлого века.
Its premiere at Director' Fortnight in Cannes this year may have been descret, but Bertrand Bonello's "Zombie Child" is a surprisingly sharp, stylish and intriguing genre film on Haiti's voodoo culture, which subtly and intelligently tackles France's colonial past. You won't find many better horror thrillers this year...and this young actress, Louise Labeque, is bound for greatness.
New Horizons Film Festival Wroclaw.
One of my fav zombie films without a doubt, paid great homage to films of the past too
bertrand bonello: *breathes*
me: masterpiece!
boarding-school-girl horror is SUCH an important genre.
probably the only film to appeal to the niche cross-section of bonello & liverpool fc fans.
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