Seeing what he’s done with his true stab at horror, it’s easy to understand why he was worried. Many scenes in “Zombi Child” end without much dramatic fanfare; some scenes end right after some narratively inconsequential detail is used to paint a fuller picture of Fanny and Mélissa’s boarding school-life. The enormity of colonization, the way its … Thankfully, following Bonello’s disjointed story is never boring thanks to his and his collaborator’s knack for dramatizing the romantic, but callow aspects of Fanny and Mélissa’s angsty teenage lives. A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. Smart and provocative with a pop sensibility, Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child returns the genre made famous by George A. Romero to its roots as a metaphor for slavery. Louise Labeque and Wislanda Louimat in Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child (2019) C lairvius Narcisse was an actual Haitian man who was still relatively young and by all accounts healthy when, in 1962, when he appeared to drop dead in the street. Show Map. Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, an eerie film about teenagers and the spirit world that will leave some viewers puzzled, opens in Haiti in 1962. With his latest, Zombi Child, which is playing now on Mubi following its London Film Festival screenings, Bonello turns to race. He was given … Review: 'Zombi Child' is a zombie movie like no other - … Much of “Zombi Child” isn’t even directly about Mélissa or her heritage; instead, Bonello usually treats her as the subject of unsettling fascination for Fanny (Louise Labéque), a lovesick and very fair teenager who’s also obsessed with the memory of her boyfriend Pablo (Sayyid El Alami). Fanny wants something from Mélissa given her association with voodoo, like when Mélissa recites René Depestre’s Cap’tain Zombi poem during an initiation ceremony for Fanny’s literary sorority. Bertrand Bonello. I like “Zombi Child” for its frank, seductive depiction of clashing cultures, as well as the care and reverence that Bonello brings to the direction and lighting of his movie’s Haiti-set scenes. By David Hudson. Zombi Child Critics Consensus. Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child is an absorbing, often perplexing story in which traditional Haitian voodoo, a religion based in a healthy respect for death, crosses paths with a French schoolgirl. pin. ‘Zombi Child’, from director Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Saint Laurent) injects history and politics into an unconventional cross-genre film. 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—with unthinkable consequences. svg-skull. Bonello often resists the temptation to criticize his young protagonists’ too harshly. Bertrand Bonello's hypnotic latest film, set in 1962 Haiti and present-day France, takes on the horrors of colonialism. So while Fanny’s online keyword-searches for information on “voodoo possession” and priestess-like “mambos” may not be typical, but they are presented in a refreshingly matter-of-fact way. A man is brought back from the dead to work in the hell of sugar cane plantations. svg-play Play svg-play Trailer. As involving and genuinely exciting as much of Bonello’s frank teen drama may be, it only says so much about who gets to write history, and what their motives are. In that sense, the slow, semi-naturalistic process by which we learn about Fanny’s intentions—she wants to use voodoo … In that sense, the slow, semi-naturalistic process by which we learn about Fanny’s intentions—she wants to use voodoo to get closer to Pablo—says a lot about “Zombi Child.” It’s a horror-drama that draws inspiration from earlier genre touchstones like “White Zombie,” “I Walked With a Zombie,” and “The Serpent and The Rainbow.” It’s also very much about its creators’ self-conscious outsider’s view of the eerie beauty and material reality of voodoo, which is itself still an outsider culture in France and beyond. We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. Bertrand Bonello (French: [bɔnɛlo]; born 11 September 1968) is a French film director, screenwriter, producer and composer. Zombi Child. Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. Writer/director/producer/composer Bertrand Bonello is best known on these shores for The Pornographer (2001), Tiresia (2003), House of Tolerance (2011) and Nocturama (2016) – films which often deploy a certain icy … Iconoclastic auteur Bertrand Bonello blends voodoo, postcolonial tensions, and the spirit of Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton to create a shivery, hypnotic excursion into heady horror. Bertrand Bonello on Zombi Child first published by VODzilla.co, from an interview conducted while he was at the BFI London Film Festival 2019. As its title suggests, “Zombi Child” finds Bonello taking that idea to its logical and most… Review by Paul Elliott ★★★½ The outlandish visuals from director Bertrand Bonello in this compelling and interesting movie transitions between the grotesque and the cerebral, and stabilise's on a territory on the edge of horror. Around the World: January 2020. The latest from French master Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent, Nocturama), ZOMBI CHILD is an “audacious and cunning” (Little White Lies) new take on classic horror tropes that “poses timely and provocative questions” while “taking us on a journey that’s as intellectually demanding as it is compelling.” (Screen Daily). Haiti, 1962. Are stories or events that don’t fit these narratives any less authentic? See more in our Cookies Policy. Bertrand Bonello’s. Originating from Haitian folklore in the early 19th century, the Creole word “zombi” referred to the trancelike state of starved plantation workers kept alive against their will. svg-skull. Hide Map. Plot isn’t really the thing in “Zombi Child,” since the movie is explicitly about a disjointed “subterranean history” of events, as Fanny and Mélissa’s 19th century history teacher (Patrick Boucheron) explains during an introductory lecture. Zombi Child: original title: Zombi Child: country: France: sales agent: Playtime: year: 2019: genre: fiction: directed by: Bertrand Bonello: film run: 103' release date: FR 12/06/2019: screenplay: Bertrand Bonello: cast: svg-skull. Zombi Child. The film opens in Haiti in 1962, where Clairvius Narcisse ( Mackenson Bijou ) mysteriously falls ill and dies. As Haitian teenager Mélissa (Wislanda Louimat) adjusts to life in a Parisian boarding school, the legacy of her grandfather Clairvus Narcisse’s past haunts her: he was a zombi in Haiti, drugged by slavers and forced to work on a plantation. Folding history onto itself more explicitly than any of Bonello's previous films, Zombi Child peels back centuries of racist stereotypes to rescue Voodoo from the stuff of black magic and portray it instead as a kind of communion a communion between spirits, a communion between generations, and a communion between the dislocated joints of an empire. Going back and forth from Haiti in the 60s, 80s and Paris today, Bertrand Bonello explores different generations, cultures and beliefs in a beautiful way, capturing roots from every corner. svg-skull. Zombi Child is not available at this time. In Paris, 55 years later, at a prestigious all-girls boarding school, Melissa, a young Haitian teenager, 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. Starring Louise Labeque, Wislanda Louimat, Mackenson Bijou. Cinéma Moderne. This man’s connection with Mélissa is unclear for a while, but there is obviously something between them, just as there’s an undefined, but powerful kind of attraction between Fanny and Mélissa. Bonello allows Zombi Child to gradually swell as he cuts back and forth from Narcisse’s ordeal to Fanny’s “ordeal”: The film opens up like a grim umbrella of dread over time, Bonello… Joyous news, thus, to hear he’s at work on a new feature, La Bête (that’s The Beast for those of us who parle Anglais), with Saint Laurent stars Léa Seydoux and Gaspard Ulliel leading, according to Les Inrockuptibles. Much of “Zombi Child” isn’t even directly about Mélissa or her heritage; instead, Bonello usually treats her as the subject of unsettling fascination for Fanny (Louise Labéque), a lovesick and very fair teenager who’s also obsessed with the memory of her boyfriend Pablo (Sayyid El Alami). Zombi Child is a 2019 French drama film directed by Bertrand Bonello.It is based on the account of the life of a supposed zombified man in Haiti, Clairvius Narcisse.It was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Iconoclastic auteur Bertrand Bonello blends voodoo, postcolonial tensions, and the spirit of Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton to create a shivery, hypnotic excursion into heady horror. svg-skull. But it’s hard to tell how these two narrative threads are related until later on in the movie. While the film, with its sequences showing Haitian ceremonies, might strike some as a white French director indulging in exoticism, Bonello takes Haitian history and culture absolutely seriously, and in juxtaposing them with the most exclusively white French experience imaginable (the school is for children and descendants of Légion d’Honneur laureates), Zombi Child poses … Directed by Bertrand Bonello • 2019 • France. Directed by Bertrand Bonello • 2019 • France With Louise Labeque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Milfort, Mackenson Bijou. Directed by Bertrand Bonello. This interview with director Bertrand Bonello was recorded in 2020. His work has also been associated with the New French Extremity. ZOMBI CHILD does get a bit slow in the beginning but it kept me on my toes until the 3rd act where everything went bunkers and I loved it! Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child. What scares Bonello, as Zombi Child makes abundantly clear, is lack of control, of being held accountable for the sins of other people. Starring Louise Labeque, Wislanda Louimat, Mackenson Bijou. Mélissa’s aunt, Katy (Katiana Milfort), is a “mambo,” or voodoo priestess, … French films at the 2020 Rotterdam International Film Festival. He lets their contradictory and sometimes fickle behavior speak for them, as when Fanny’s friends (all white) try to decide if Mélissa is “cool” or “weird” before they wonder aloud if a boy is genuinely attractive or only “fake sexy.” Soon after that, they all sing a French rap song with lyrics like "I hate cops ‘cause cops hate what we are,” "only my crew knows who I am,” and "this ain't love, I just want your ass.” Bonello’s young heroines are, in that sense, allowed to be young without being condemned too harshly for it. EST. It’s been less than two years since Zombi Child but, if you’re like us, any wait for new Bertrand Bonello’s always just a bit too long. Displaying the same audaciousness he did in Saint Laurent and Nocturama, Bonello shifts seamlessly between eras, weaving a spellbinding vision of the ways in which colonialism’s legacy continues to haunt the present. Zombi Child. November 28, 2019. 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