User reviews

Madagascar is a region hardly talked about, except in general to deplore its extreme poverty. It is , moreover, a country where - before "L'Île rouge (Red Island)" - no movie was shot for about thirty-five years, resulting in a dramatic lack of specific equipment and facilities as a result. Through filming a story set in Madagascar as its sole setting, Robin Campillo ("They Came back", "120 Beats Per Minute") actually takes the first step to making up for this double injustice; let him be congratulated for that. All the more so since at the time of its filming the COVID pandemics was at its peak. Under such conditions it is a real feat that "Red Island" not only exists but manages, against all odds, to tell its tale, at once a page of the country's history and a slice of the author's personal childhood. No small ambition assuredly. Which makes me feel a bit embarrassed, for I have to confess that I did not like the film very much, interesting and sincere as it is. Where the shoe pinches actually, at least in this writer's eyes, is that the whole thing does not entirely live up to its aspirations.

Interesting, yes, insofar as the scene (a French air base in Madagascar), the time (a couple of months between 1971 and 1972) and the situation (the tensions between the elected president Tsiranana, the French forces and the Malagasy people) have hardly ever (or even never ?) been depicted in a fiction film.

Interesting also because the narrative is, as I wrote, based on Campillo's own memories, which brings an additional flavor of authenticity to the main plot.

And sincere, for the writer-director, far from judging his characters, does justice to all of them, including the "sinful" ones, Bernard (and his infidelity) and Guedj (and his leaning on alcohol) The trouble to my mind is that, while aiming to study the dysfunction of a family falling apart, « Red Island » offers the mere sketch of a serious analysis. A pity because actually everything was in place for a quality psychological drama around the husband, Warrant Officer Robert Lopez (not evil, but rigid and authoritarian), the wife (married too young, too idle, frustrated by her restrictive role as mother and housewife), and their little boy Thomas (growing up in between). The portrait, I'm afraid, is singularly lacking in depth, and when Campillo takes stock of the decay of two other couples, it's even worse.

As a result, perhaps because it's poorly constructed, the film doesn't touch or move us as much as it could. Just compare it to "The Silent Girl", another film released shortly after, also told from a child's point of view, quite overwhelming. Unfortunately here, only a few scenes have any emotional power, the best ones featuring the little boy and his young girlfriend (child actors Charlie Vauselle and Cathy Phan are excellent, and there's a real chemistry between them). For the rest, the performers have little to defend their characters, so much so that they are only sketched out or presented too coldly or too intellectually. Worse, they are sometimes abandoned along the way, like the pieds-noirs couple, Bernard's young wife who can't adjust to life abroad - or introduced far too late, like Bernard, the soldier who falls in love with a Madagascan woman, to be grasped in all their complexity. And what about the treatment of Mingaly (despite the good choice of Malagasy Amely Rakotsarimalaka), soldier Bernard's native mistress? It sounds unbelievable but, it is a fact: she only appears in the last fifth of the story! An overly disjointed narrative, gaping holes in its development, sequences that are too long and others too short prevent anything more than episodic buy-in.

Another of the film's weaknesses is the amount of time given over to animated sequences featuring the children's favorite heroine Fantômette. It's been a recent (and disputable) fashion in French cinema to sprinkle animated sequences throughout a live-action film ("Tout le monde aime Jeanne", "Ama Gloria", etc.). In this writer's eyes, in the Fantômette sequences in "Red Island" not only have none of the magic of childhood but they're banally animated and only remotely metaphorical. Above all, they bring nothing significant to the whole, taking up instead a large amount of footage that could have been devoted to deepening the characters' psychology. The ending beats all records for "non-cinema": turning into a tract film, the final quarter of an hour or so inflicts us with no fewer than three political speeches on the run as well as a protest march with no real drama at stake, making us sink into the most crass boredom.

All in all, "Red Island" is a missed opportunity for Robin Campillo, and I regret it. The director, who has proved in the past how good he can get, had all the cards in his hand to make a major film though, with unprecedented historical, geographical, psychological and memorial dimensions. He has only succeeded in making a respectable work, unfortunately too poorly put together to be called a masterpiece.

Set against a backdrop, in the early 1970s, of increasing local dissatisfaction with both their government and it's dependent relationship with former colonial power France, this drama follows the lives of the last few occupants of a French airbase in Madagascar as their deployment comes to an end. Most of the observations emanate from the young "Thomas" (Charlie Vauselle) as he watches his parents "Colette" (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) and "Robert(o)" (Quim Gutiérrez) come to terms with not just their impending relocation, but with changes to their own not always perfect relationship. His young eyes also serve as conduits to other characterisations amongst their ex-pat community. "Bernard" (Hugues Delemarlière) has his young pregnant wife "Odile" (Luna Carpiaux) with him but she hates the place and returns to France leaving him free to fall in love with a local hooker "Miangaly" (Amely Rakotsarimakala), one of many who are increasingly coming to resent the last vestiges of their former masters. The film has a certain tension to it, but I felt none of the characters really very well developed. The relationship between the young boy and his friend "Suzanne" (Cathy Pham) - cemented over their love of the crime busting and quite amusingly basic "Fantômette", being the only one that really offered us anything with much depth. As to the "Red Island" - well we know where we are, but the photography doesn't really make much of the location so we could just as easily be in any sunny seaside location. The last five minutes give us more of an indication of evolving political developments but I found, for the most part, this to be a pretty unimaginative trawl through the peccadilloes of some people about whom I didn't really care. The young Vauselle turns in quite an engaging effort but otherwise I wasn't especially impressed.

Movies about little-known, faraway locations can be a great way to learn about exotic destinations and cultures. And those set in a historical context can offer excellent opportunities for insights into the legacies of these locales. Such was my hope for this offering from writer-director Robin Campillo about the waning days of the French presence on the island of Madagascar. Set in the early 1970s, approximately a decade after the nation gained independence from its former colonial occupier, the film follows the lives of several French military officers and their families, particularly their relationships with each other and with locals, at the time when France was withdrawing from the country. On the surface, this might sound like an intriguing premise for a film, but, instead, it's a mess of diverse, largely unconnected story threads that are never fully fleshed out. Over the course of this release, the disjointed narrative changes focus multiple times, telling pieces of stories from the ever-shifting perspectives of an array of characters involved in a wide range of underdeveloped scenarios, many of which are introduced and subsequently allowed to fizzle without meaningful or satisfying resolution. Much of the picture explores childhood and coming of age matters from the standpoint of Thomas (Charlie Vauselle), a shy eight-year-old seeking to find his way and understand life in this enigmatic setting. But Thomas's experience is intertwined with themes related to domestic discord, marital infidelity, interracial relationships, concealed secrets, questionable ambitions, political reform movements and the fading remnants of European imperialism. There are also a number of segments exploring Thomas's vivid fantasy life, particularly his fascination with Fantômette, the subject of a French book series for young readers featuring a crime-fighting female superhero. In presenting all of this material, the film incorporates familiar elements reminiscent of a plethora of pictures, including everything from "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982) to "The Ice Storm" (1997), among others. In the end, though, none of this hangs together especially well, frequently leaving viewers perplexed about what's coming next or why some of this material was even included in the first place. It essentially feels like a movie put together by a committee, ultimately providing considerably more frustration than satisfaction. For what it's worth, "Red Island," sadly, is a real disappointment and a woefully missed opportunity to offer audiences something truly fresh, new and different, something the movie industry could really use more of these days.

Just seen this over 4 sittings and it is a strange mix of child tale and cartoon; very adult matters and a denunciation of colonization and its wake ....

And it flits from one to the other. And back. As if it could not make up its mind where it is going ....

Odd. But ultimately good to very good. The last 20 minutes were excellent and you then realized that maybe all of the film was leading up to this realization ; but then you cannot be sure

Maybe it was maybe it was not. It meanders stylishly. The mother/son combo is very effective both of these actors we will no doubt see time and again. Both have great screen presence .... as does the boy's Vietnamese friend ... also very good presence and acting ; all 3 hold the piece together

It takes a little bit of work in parts to stay with it. The cartoon "Fantômette" scenes did not really grab me; I doubt they would any adult ...

But overall it is an original work; and let us not forget Madagascar here is also a big player in this tale.

Watch it. See what you think ...