Zombi Child

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Movie
Original title Zombi Child
Country of production France
original language French , Haitian
Publishing year 2019
length 103 minutes
Rod
Director Bertrand Bonello
script Bertrand Bonello
production Judith Lou Lévy ,
Olivier Père
music Bertrand Bonello
camera Yves Cape
cut Anita Roth
occupation

Zombi Child is a fantasy zombie film directed by Bertrand Bonello , which premiered on May 17, 2019 as part of the Cannes International Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs series and was released in French cinemas on June 12, 2019.

action

1962 in Haiti. A man named Clairvius Narcisse collapses dead on the street and is buried by his grieving family. Shortly after his funeral, however, he wakes up again as a zombie and is doomed to work in a trance-like state on a sugar cane plantation along with other creatures like himself who are overseen by a handful of grinning slave masters.

55 years later in the renowned boarding school of the Légion d'Honneur in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris. The pupils, around the age of fifteen, hear about the legacy of the French Revolution in one lesson. The Maison d'éducation de la légion d'honneur is reserved for girls whose parents, grandparents or great-grandparents have received military medals, are members of the Legion of Honor or the National Order of Merit.

The pupil Fanny maintains a secret sisterhood with her classmates Salomé, Romy and Adele at the strictly Catholic boarding school for girls. After they discussed taking in Mélissa , who recently came to France from Haiti and lost her parents in the earthquake there , she tells them about an old family secret. Little does she suspect that this strange story she tells her classmates makes Fanny want to bind her great love Pablo, who broke up with her, forever through voodoo .

Haiti and Voodoo, France and the Legion of Honor

Clairvius Narcisse, originally from Haiti, is considered to be the first person to be made a zombie with the help of voodoo . He is said to have been put into such a state by a preparation, allegedly made from a mixture of psychoactive substances.

The Maison d'éducation de la légion d'honneur , founded by Napoleon in 1805, is reserved for girls whose parents, grandparents or great-grandparents have received military medals, are members of the Legion of Honor or the National Order of Merit. Shortly before the school was founded in 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France, although the historical ties between the two countries still exist today.

production

Directed by Bertrand Bonello , who also wrote the script. After Bonello read the story of Clairvius Narcisse and decided to use it as the starting point for his film, he added a granddaughter whose parents died in the Haiti earthquake. Her mother worked for the Legion of Honor to bring the teenager to France after her death. Since the girls in the film do not meet in cafes and their parents should not be included, Bonello decided to send them to a boarding school for girls. During his research, the director came across the girls' school of the Légion d'honneur.

"Hear, white world, the volleys of our dead, listen to my zombie voice in honor of our dead"; With these introductory words from a poem by the Haitian writer René Depestre , Bonello lets his film begin. This quote is taken up and deepened again later in the film. Despestre said about the importance of voodoo for Haiti up to the present day and especially about Hadriana, who in his book Hadriana dans tous mes rêves (in the German translation Hadriana in all my dreams ) becomes a zombie, Despestre said: “There are countries in where reality is stifling, totalitarian countries where there is no fantasy. In Haiti, the opposite is the case. "

The main role of Fanny was cast by Louise Labeque . Her classmates Salomé, Romy and Adele are played by Adile David, Ninon Francois and Mathilde Riu. Wislanda Louimat took on the role of Mélissa , Katiana Milfort plays her aunt, the voodoo priestess Mambo Kathy. Mackenson Bijou plays Clairvius.

Trap music by French rap artists Damso and Kalash was used for the soundtrack, strong electro rock that goes well with the girls' subversive behavior, according to Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter .

The film was shot in Haiti. Yves Cape acted as cameraman .

The film was presented from May 17, 2019 as part of the Cannes International Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs side series , the Directors' Fortnight. It was released in French cinemas on June 12, 2019. In late July and early August 2019 it was shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival . In September 2019 the film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Masters section. Also in September 2019 there was a performance at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. At the end of September and beginning of October 2019 the film was presented at the Hamburg Film Festival , at the same time at the New York Film Festival and at the beginning of October 2019 at the London Film Festival . The film is offered in Germany on the Grandfilm platform at Vimeo . It is due to be released in German cinemas on October 8, 2020.

reception

Reviews

So far, the film has won over 85 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 7 out of a possible 10 points. This gave the film one of the middle places among the films presented in Cannes. In the critic.de festival's critics' mirror , it received almost exclusively positive reviews.

Fabien Lemercier of the online cinema magazine Cineuropa writes that with Zombi Child , the French director Bertrand Bonello is immersing himself in a topic that has recently been questioned somewhat in television series and films. The film with the modest budget examines the deep Haitian roots of voodoo, a gray area between life and death, against the background of slavery and freedom, with implicit themes such as the karma of slavery, the betrayal of values, forgetting, the feeling of belonging a community that would be addressed by the power of spirits, myths and reality. What at first glance appears to be a modern, girl-oriented teenage film, is actually crossed with the period film and a semi-ethnographic documentary, which Lemercier describes as a surprising and fascinating mixture.

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter says of the result, it feels like two incomplete films in one, neither of which is completely satisfactory in the end. Still, there are some graceful moments scattered throughout the film, especially in the Haitian sequences, such as when Clairvius manages to regain control of his body, escape the work gang and return to his hometown, which is a moment of dark, contemplative beauty. Bonello also brings details of Haitian history into his film and draws interesting parallels between the supernatural phenomenon and the country's long and troubled past, in which a slave was a half-alive, half-dead prisoner of a colonial power, which is not unlike a zombie . Mintzer describes the second half of Zombi Child as a mixture of The Craft and Nocturama , the director's final film , in which the plot moves towards the teenage film .

Awards

Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián 2019

Filmfest Hamburg 2019

  • Nomination for the Art Cinema Award (Bertrand Bonello)

Cannes International Film Festival 2019

Sitges Film Festival 2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Jordan Mintzer: 'Zombi Child': Film Review. In: The Hollywood Reporter, May 17, 2019.
  2. ↑ Frédéric Jaeger: Zombi Child - criticism. In: critic.de, May 18, 2019.
  3. ^ Fabien Lemercier: Bertrand Bonello • Director of Zombi Child: "Films are also made for communicating with spirits". In: cineuropa.org, May 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c Fabien Lemercier: Review: Zombi Child. In: cineuropa.org, May 17, 2019.
  5. ↑ René Despestre couronné pour his oeuvre. In: journallecteur.blogspot.com, May 17, 2016.
  6. ↑ Zombi Child. In: jff.org.il. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  7. ↑ Alfonso Rivera: San Sebastián tops off its surprising Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. In: cineuropa.org, 23 August 2019.
  8. ↑ First films. In: filmfesthamburg.de, July 30, 2019.
  9. ↑ Kate Erbland: NYFF Announces 2019 Main Slate, Including 'Parasite', 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire', and More. In: indiewire.com, August 6, 2019.
  10. ↑ 63rd BFI London Film Festival program announced. In: bfi.org.uk, August 29, 2019.
  11. ↑ Zombi Child on the VoD page of Grandfilm on Vimeo. (Video)
  12. ↑ Start dates in Germany. In: insidekino.com. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  13. ↑ Zombi Child. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  14. ↑ Cannes 2019 Movie Scorecard. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  15. ↑ Cannes critic's jury - Critic Mirror 2019. In: critic.de. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  16. ↑ Nominations: Art Cinema Award. In: filmfesthamburg.de. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
  17. ↑ http://www.sitges.cat/actualitat/noticies/the-lighthouse-lux-aeterna-i-el-camino-una-pelicula-de-breaking-bad-se-sumen-a-les-novetats-mes -esperades-a-sitges-2019