Ghost Town Anthology

Movie
German title	Ghost Town Anthology
Original title	Repertoire des villes disparues
Country of production	Canada
original language	French
Publishing year	2019
length	96 minutes
Rod
Director	Denis Côté
script	Denis Côté
production	Ziad Touma
camera	François Messier-Rheault
cut	Nicolas Roy
occupation
	Robert Naylor : Jimmy Dubé; Josée Deschênes : Gisèle Dubé; Jean-Michel Anctil : Romuald Dubé; Larissa Corriveau : Adèle; Rémi Goulet : André; Diane Lavallée : Simone Smallwood; Hubert Proulx : Pierre; Rachel Graton : Camille; Normand Carrière : Richard; Jocelyne Zucco : Louise;

Ghost Town Anthology (original title Répertoire des villes disparues ) is a Canadian fantasy drama by Denis Côté , which premiered on February 11, 2019 as part of the Berlin International Film Festival , where the film was shown in official competition.

action

In the remote village of Irénée-les-Neiges with 215 inhabitants in wintry Quebec, a young man named Simon Dubé dies in a car accident. The shocked citizens are reluctant to talk about the circumstances that led to the tragedy and try to forget about the incident. His body is laid out in the cemetery gardener's shed until spring comes and it can be dug. Simon's mother Gisele does not believe in suicide, but his brother Jimmy does and keeps hoping for a sign from the deceased. Romuald, the father of the family, secretly disappears. The small community representative, Gilbert, informed the village mayor, Simone Smallwood, that he would send them a psychologist.

The very fearful villager Adele believes in demons who are chasing her. Sometimes she also sees shadows in her apartment. One of the villagers wants to restore an old house at the exit of the village, but the mayor warns him that bad energies were emanating from it. A family man who suffered from depression once killed himself and his four children there. More and more villagers see four children wearing strange masks. Adele is the first to see the many other figures moving through the village or just standing still. The dead Simon first appears to his mother, but his father, who is moving further and further away from Irénée-les-Neiges, also meets his son several times. Finally he meets Jimmy, surrounded by many other figures who watch him in silence.

When Jimmy told his community about these encounters, Gilbert, who had traveled specially, and the psychologist Yasmina told them about the same apparitions across the country. They even took photos of the characters that only appear outside the cities, in small communities. It is recommended that the citizens of Irénée-les-Neiges simply go on living completely normally. However, Jimmy and his mother cannot stand this. You no longer see any prospects for yourself in the rural community and decide to move to Quebec. Villager Camille also wants to leave, but other residents like her husband Pierre and Jimmy's best friend André stay. Simon's father returns to Irénée-les-Neiges as a dead, silent observer.

production

Staff, template and cast

Directed by Denis Côté and also wrote the script. The story is borrowed from the debut novel by the Canadian literary scholar Laurence Olivier , which was published in 2015.

Robert Naylor plays Jimmy Dubé, the two years older brother of Simon Dubé, who initially died in the film. His mother Gisele is played by Josee Deschenes , his father Romuald by Jean-Michel Anctil . Diane Lavallee took on the role of Mayor Simone Smallwood. The foreign Muslim Yasmina, who is new to the village, is played by Sharon Ibgui . Nosy Louise is played by Jocelyne Zucco , her husband Richard from Normand Carriere . Larissa Corriveau can be seen in the role of social welfare recipient Adele , Hubert Proulx plays the café owner Pierre, Rachel Graton his girlfriend Camille, and Remi Goulet took on the role of André.

Filming and publishing

The shooting took place in the snowy Saint-Michel in the heart of the Montérégie, which Irénée-les-Neiges served as a backdrop

The film was shot in March 2018 in Saint-Michel in the Canadian administrative region of Montérégie. François Messier-Rheault acted as cameraman .

A first trailer was presented in autumn 2018. The film was shown in February 2019 as part of the official competition of the Berlin International Film Festival . On February 14, 2019, the film celebrated its Canadian premiere as part of a screening at the Cinéma du Musée in Montreal. In June 2019 he was presented at the Sydney Film Festival . In July 2019 the film was shown at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival , in late July and early August 2019 at the Jerusalem Film Festival and in August 2019 at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In September 2019 there was a performance at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. At the beginning of October 2019 it was presented at the London Film Festival and at the beginning of November 2019 at the Minsk International Film Festival “Listapad”. On April 21, 2020, the film will be included in the program of the arthouse streaming service MUBI .

reception

Reviews

Répertoire des villes disparues received 2.6 out of four possible stars in the international reviews of the British trade journal Screen International and thus, together with the Chinese contribution Di jiu tian chang, took 5th place among all 16 Berlinale competition films. Emin Alpers A Story of Three Sisters and Nadav Lapid's Synonymes (3.0 each) topped the ranking. So far, the film has won over 96 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 7.3 out of a possible 10 points.

In his review, Patrick Wellinski from RBB calls the film a ghost story from our present and an intelligent requiem on a world that is coming to an end. The fact that Denis Côté and his Swiss cameraman François Messier-Rheault shot the film on 16 mm not only changes the texture of the images, it also gives this sad ghost story something very haptic, Wellinski continues: “Light and shadow take on an unreal dimension. The faces of the villagers, their discretion and their reserve appear more mysterious and ambiguous. The fantastic elements of the narrative never seem like foreign objects in an otherwise realistic setting. That creates a dreamlike permeability. ” Répertoires des villes disparues is a work that works less through stringent narration, but focuses more on snapshots, says Wellinski, and in its poetic calm one even likes a meditation on the extinction of the villages, the Recognize the dwindling population in the country and the consuming magic of the big city.

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter writes that with its minimalist attitudes Côté's film can be compared to the work of M. Night Shyamalan , and the words “I see dead people” could also be on everyone's lips in the fictional town of Irenee-les-Neiges . The film is open to a number of interpretations, says Rooney, questions that concern the fear of strangers and being different or the danger that small communities are forgotten.