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Geek Vibes Nation
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Vibes Nation
'Red Island' Blu-Ray Review - A Reflective, Child's-Eye View Of Colonization
Living on one of the last remaining military bases amidst a hedonistic group of French armed forces in 1970s Madagascar, ten-year-old Thomas begins to find cracks in the surface of his family's blissful existence on the idyllic island. Taking inspiration from his comic book hero Fantomette, Thomas spies on those around him, discovering the hidden and tangled political and sexual lives of the colonizers and the colonized. As relocation looms, Thomas questions whether the memories he has made are ones he should remember fondly. Simultaneously a sensual evocation of discovering the adult world and a sober reflection of what it represents, Robin Campillo's anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed 120 BPM weaves together the personal and political in a 'visually spectacular [and] masterful portrayal of colonialism through a child's eyes' (The Upcoming). For in-depth thoughts on Red Island, please see my colleague Will Bjarnar's review from its original theatrical release here. Video Quality Red Island arrives on Blu-Ray courtesy of Film Movement with a sumptuous 1080p presentation that perfectly captures the look of the film. This is a visually resplendent film with a significant amount of time spent around the community, and the camera soaks up every single moment of it. There is a fetching amount of detail in close-up shots, along with wide shots of the beautiful scenery. Colors are deftly saturated and especially vibrant within the foliage. Skin tones look natural, and there are some wonderful facial details present. Black levels are solid with no obvious crush, and highlights avoid blooming under the bright sun. Compression artifacts and other digital anomalies are fortunately not an issue. The film looks great in high definition. Audio Quality The Blu-Ray comes with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track in the original mixture of French and Malagasy that sounds lovely. The movie is primarily dialogue-driven with room to observe and luxuriate in the soundscape as a whole. Dialogue is clear without being burdened by the score or sound effects. This is not a film that commands a particularly robust low end, but there is some valuable texture at points. The track shakes things up with sounds of nature emanating out of the speakers. The film makes good use of panning effects to make the island come alive. Environmental sounds come through distinctly in the side and rear speakers. Overall, this track does a tremendous job of representing the film. Optional English subtitles are available. Special Features Audio Commentary: Director Robin Campillo provides a commentary track in which he discusses the process of making the film, the inspiration for the narrative, the fairy tale qualities, the performances, and more. Trailer (1:56) Booklet: A multi-page booklet featuring the essay 'Masks Off: On Robin Campillo's Red Island ' by film critic Sam Cohen is provided here. This piece gives a well-rounded analysis and context for the historical aspects, themes, and plot developments, which strengthens your appreciation overall. Final Thoughts Red Island provides a unique entry point into the colonization of a community as seen through the wide, deeply observant eyes of a kid. Director Robin Campillo weaves in the stories of multiple different members of the community, but the limited lens means that some of the narratives feel a bit incomplete or superfluous. There is a mixture of tones that mostly works out well, but the clashes are jarring in a few key moments. The performances of the young newcomers are quite good, and the adults in the ensemble all feel completely authentic to the time period. It is not always the smoothest path, but the narrative journey is worth taking. Film Movement has provided a Blu-Ray with a splendid A/V presentation along with a valuable commentary track. Recommended Red Island is currently available to purchase on Standard Edition Blu-Ray or with a Limited Edition Slipcover exclusively through Vinegar Syndrome. Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray. Disclaimer: Film Movement and OCN Distribution have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes Directors' Fortnight 2025 Lineup Welcomes Christian Petzold to the Festival, Plus ‘Sorry, Baby'
The Cannes Directors' Fortnight (May 14 – 24) has unveiled its 2025 lineup. The 57th edition of the Cannes Film Festival sidebar again showcases director-driven works from emerging and established filmmakers, this year opening for the second time in a row with a posthumous movie: 'Enzo,' directed by French 'BPM' filmmaker Robin Campillo, who picks up the reins from late Palme d'Or-winning 'The Class' director Laurent Cantet, who died in April. (Sophie Fillières' final film 'This Life of Mine' opened the event last year.) The Fortnight will close with Eva Victor's Sundance sensation 'Sorry, Baby,' which A24 acquired for release later in 2025 during the January festival. The coming-of-age story 'Enzo' follows an aspiring young mason worker in Marseille whose friendship with an older Ukrainian coworker offers him a renewed sense of life. 'Sorry, Baby,' meanwhile, stars writer/director Victor as a college literature professor reeling from trauma. More from IndieWire Peabody Awards 2025: 'Fantasmas', 'Shōgun', 'Sugarcane,' and More Receive Nominations Dag Johan Haugerud's Berlin-Winning Oslo Trilogy Acquired by Strand - Watch the Trailer for 'Love' Making his Cannes debut will be German filmmaker Christian Petzold with his latest collaboration with Paula Beer, 'Miroirs No. 3.' Cannes pundits speculated Petzold might show up in the competition this year; instead, he will cut his Cannes teeth in the sidebar with this story of a pianist whose life is ruined when a car accident kills her boyfriend. Fortnight artistic director Julien Rejl praised the film during Tuesday's lineup announcement, saying, 'It's a kind of melodrama, very mysterious, but with the same great direction, precision and elegance that makes the charm of Christian Petzold's cinema.' 'The 57th edition of the Fortnight is pluralist, mixed, rich in discoveries. It celebrates a cinematic liveliness that is invaluable and more essential than ever, even as directors and producers are finding it increasingly difficult to finance their project. It stands with directors the world over in the fight against the homogenisation, the commodification and thus the neutralisation of cinema. We are pleased to share with you a lineup that honours the art of mise en scene and the desire and generosity of the auteurs,' Rejl said in a press statement circulated with the lineup. Other highlights include Australian 'The Devil's Candy' director Sean Byrne's latest 'Dangerous Animals'; Iraqi, New York-based filmmaker Hasan Hadi's 'The President's Cake'; Canadian director Anne Émond's 'Peak Everything' with Piper Perabo; Lloyd Lee Choi's 'Lucky Lu' about a Chinese delivery driver in New York; and more. Harmony Korine designed this year's key art, which you can discover over at the Directors' Fortnight's website. Here's the full Directors' Fortnight lineup. 'Enzo,' Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo (Opening Night) 'Amour Apocalypse,' Anne Émond 'Brand New Landscape,' Yuiga Danzuka 'Classe moyenne,' Anthony Cordier 'Dangerous Animals,' Sean Byrne 'The Foxes Round,' Valéry Carnoy 'The Girl in the Snow,' Louise Hémon 'The Girls We Want,' Prïncia Car 'Girl on Edge,' Jinghao Zhou 'Indomptables,' Thomas Ngijol 'Kokuho,' Lee Sang-il 'Lucky Lu,' Lloyd Lee Choi 'Militantropos,' Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, and Simon Mozgovyi 'Miroirs No. 3,' Christian Petzold 'La mort n'existe pas,' Félix Dufour-Laperrière 'The President's Cake,' Hasan Hadi 'Que ma volonté soit faite,' Julia Kowalski 'Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor (Closing Night) Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Enzo review – Laurent Cantet's swan song is a heartfelt tale of youth and desire
The directors fortnight sidebar of Cannes opens with a heartfelt, urgent drama about youth and desire – and destiny, sexuality and class. It is, effectively, the final movie of the late Laurent Cantet, who died last year. Cantet was working on the screenplay with his longtime collaborator and contemporary, Robin Campillo and it is Campillo who now directs – and brings to the movie his usual intelligence and clarity. It is a story of growing pains and not fitting in and the painful mystery of being young. Enzo is a 16-year-old kid from a privileged background, living in a gorgeous villa with a swimming pool; to the intense chagrin of his maths teacher dad and engineer mum he has decided he wants to quit school and work with his hands on a building site as an apprentice. Meanwhile Enzo's elder brother is poised for a prestigious university career. Enzo is embarrassingly mediocre at the job and clearly it is only his family's standing which prevents him from being fired. His father thinks this is a self-harming affectation which might seriously damage his future; he believes Enzo's talent at drawing means he should apply to art school – a far more acceptable middle-class career path. But of course this only makes stubborn Enzo more determined to tough it out at the building site where his incompetence baffles and annoys everyone. And Enzo is drawn to Vlad, a friendly young Ukrainian guy who is conflicted about not going back home to join the struggle against Russia. Enzo is fascinated by the sheer grownup importance of everything Vlad represents: Vlad has a sense of identity and a dramatic dilemma which is gratifyingly real in both its options: stay in France and do manual labour like a real man – or go home and fight? How much more heroic and magnificent is Vlad's existence, how much more real than silly, muddled, spoiled Enzo's dreary life choices? And Enzo's interest in Vlad is romantic in every other sense. Of course, there's something tragicomic and absurd about poor Enzo, absurd and humiliating in the way teenage yearning often is – and Enzo's dad's suspicion of self-harm turns out to be shrewder than he thought. Campillo and Cantet show us that the agonies of being young and existentially rebellious are not simply shallow and callow: they represent a state of idealism which is poignantly brief, like everything else about youth. It is another powerful, absorbing picture from Campillo and a fitting swan song for Laurent Cantet. Enzo screened at the Cannes film festival
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Films From Christian Petzold, Sean Byrne Chosen for Cannes' Directors' Fortnight Section
Eighteen features and 10 short films will be in the lineup of the independent Directors' Fortnight section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced at a press conference on Tuesday morning. The section will open with Robin Campillo's 'Enzo' and will also include German director Christian Petzold's 'Mirrors No. 3,' starring Paula Beer; the Ukrainian documentary 'Militantropos,' from directors Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi; 'Dangerous Animals,' a horror film set at sea from Australian director Sean Byrne ('The Devil's Candy'); the comedy 'Peak Everything' from Canadian director Anne Émond; and the closing-night film, first-time director Eva Victor's Sundance hit 'Sorry, Baby,' which will be released by A24 in June. The section does not convene a jury to choose the best of its films, but for the second consecutive year it will give out an audience award. Last year's audience award, the first ever given out by any section at Cannes, went to Canadian director Matthew Rankin's 'Universal Language.' Directors' Fortnight, which was originally titled La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs until the fact that réalisateurs is a masculine noun prompted a 2023 change to Quinzaine des Cinéastes, was the section that first brought Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Michael Haneke and George Lucas to Cannes, and that more recently presented Damien Chazelle's 'Whiplash,' Robert Eggers' 'The Lighthouse,' Sean Baker's 'The Florida Project' and Chloé Zhao's 'Songs My Brothers Taught Us.' At this year's opening-night ceremony for the Fortnight, director Todd Haynes will be honored with the Carosse d'Or or Golden Coach, an honorary award whose past recipients include Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Agnès Varda and David Cronenberg. The Directors' Fortnight announcement follows last week's announcement of Cannes' Official Selection and Monday's announcement of the International Critics Week lineup. The festival is expected to reveal additions to the Official Selection as early as this week. The poster for this year's Fortnight, seen above, was designed by director Harmony Korine. The Directors' Fortnight lineup: Feature films:'Enzo,' Robin Campillo (opening film)'The Foxes Round,' Valery Cornoy'Death Does Not Exist,' Feliz Dufour-Laperriere'L'Engloutie,' Louise Hemon'Kokouho,' Lee Sang-il'Lucky Lu,' Lloyd Lee Choi 'Militantropos,' Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova & Simon Mozgovyi'Girl on Edge,' Jinghao Zhou'Middle Class,' Anthony Cordier'Mirrors No. 3,' Christian Petzold'The Girls We Want,' Princia Car'Dangerous Animals,' Sean Byrne'Peak Everything,' Anne Émond'The President's Cake,' Hasan Hadi 'Indomptables,' Thomas Ngijol'Brand New Landscape,' Yuiga Danzuka'Que Ma Volonte Soit Faite,' Julia Kowalski'Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor (closing film) Short/Medium Length Films:'10K,' Gala Hernandez Lopez'Loynes,' Dorian Jespers'Nervous Energy,' Eve Liu'Bread Will Walk,' Alex Boya'Blue Heart,' Samuel Suffren'Death of the Fish,' Eva Lusbaronian'The Body,' Louris van de Geer'Before the Sea Forgets,' Ngoc Duy Le'Karmash,' Aleem Bukhan'When the Geese Flew,' Arthur Gay The post Films From Christian Petzold, Sean Byrne Chosen for Cannes' Directors' Fortnight Section appeared first on TheWrap.
