Qui a tué Bambi?

A good thriller. At times it did feel like a made-for-TV film, but maybe that was due to the small cast and the constant hospital setting (both of which do give the film a claustrophobic feel).

Unfortunately I missed out on the Q&A session with the director who had attended an earlier showing at the Institut francais in London, otherwise I have nothing much else to add to the other comments posted here.

In short, a creepy film set in a hospital with a good enough cast - but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. One thing that I couldn't get out of my head though: all modern hospitals have CCTV cameras, which would have prevented the events in this film from taking place.

"Who Killed Bambi?" is a subtitled French film all about Isabelle (aka Bambi), a surgical nurse in training in a hospital where strange things are happening to attractive female patients. As this somewhat plodding film wears on, Isabelle comes to suspect a surgeon of murder and the plot becomes a dangerous contest of wits between doctor and nurse. A visually stylish film with little to fault, the mounting tension is marginal and barely sufficient to qualify it as a thriller. Rather it is a somewhat tedious drama which a couple of peculiar dream-like scenes which seem like an after-thought and a conclusion which is anticlimactic and too long in coming. Nonetheless, there's enough substance to make this a worthwhile watch for those into French cinema who've seen the many better films of this genre. (B)

"Qui a tué Bambi?" has big qualities:gore and special effects are almost absent and the story is wrapped in an agonizing atmosphere .

The director knows his classics: in turn ,I've thought of Henri-Georges Clouzot's "la Prisonnière" (the relationship between the doctor and the nurse which verges on sado-masochism) ,of Crichton' s "Coma" (there's an hospital where patients disappear,and one of their surgeons' behavior is dubious),of Polanski's "Rosemary's baby " (a character is in the middle of a strange conspiracy ,nobody believes her,but there's more: the jewel the doctor gives to the nurse strongly recalls the one Minnie Castevet gives to Rosemary;and in both movies the jewels had belonged to another woman (dead) before)and of "Carnival of souls" (the car wreck).

The director adds hints at Walt Disney's "Bambi" as well;the title is no misnomer: "Your mother will not come round anymore" " Your legs are giving way under you,just like Bambi" .

Perhaps the best ideas of the script are the "games" subject: an innocent game the nurses play in the corridor where they tell if a person is a man or a woman by the way they look at their fingernails; wicked games such as the consonants and the vowels one.You may remember in "the crying game" the story called "the scorpion and the frog" which comes back later at the end of that Jordan film . "The consonants and the vowels " game plays the same part here.It's downright disturbing when the nurse plays it for the first time in a hellish nightclub.The second time,not only the heroine but also the audience can play too.

The two leads are convincing and they never overplay ,which is a tour de force in such a context.One can regret the last minute .It comes almost as an anticlimax.

It's a good thriller.The director knows his classics.

Espoo Ciné, 23.08.2003

This was the third screening in the world of this film.

I must say, Gilles Marchand knows how to make a stylish movie.

The plot is set to a hightechnology hospital somewhere in france. Isabelle is studying for her surgery-nurse diploma but is having difficulties with an illness that gives her dizzy-spells. She needs to have an operation. At the same time a Doctor is abusing patients sexually after giving them anasthetics. All the actors are very good and convincing, especially Laurent Lucas (Dr.Phillip) who makes a pretty good twisted doctor.

There is a small problem with this film. It's not the actors, it's not the script, It's not the cinematography. The problem is more in the direction and the visual style. There is not enough tension in the film to build up some kind of climax so the film ends up a bit flat in my mind. The music is a bit boring and doesn't really contribute to anything. The lack of visual horror kind of takes away the edge of the film.

Anyways, Marchand has made a quality film that is really worth seeing. His inspiration of hitchcock is pretty easy to see, of course with his own individual touch. When I asked him about which directors inspire him the most (he was attending Espoo Ciné) he mentioned Hitchcock and David Lynch. There are some dream sequences that are clearly lynch-inspired but they totally lack all the intensity that lynch beholds.

Good movie, not a classic in any way, but still good!

Regards, Qvick

Isabelle ( Sophiie Quinton) a hospital nurse not yet fully certificated suffers from dizzy spells due to an ear problem. One of the senior surgeons Dr. Philip (Laurent Lucas) calls her Bambi. A stupid remark in my opinion and not befitting his character. The hospital looks ever so hygienic with its rooms and corridors in dazzling white and the doctors and nursing staff uniformed in white, white, white! But strange events are happening in this spotless hospital...patients are waking up under anaesthesia....patients are disappearing from their beds....what has gone awry?

As events unfold Isabelle, a sweet young thing, has strong suspicions about Dr. Philip's behaviour, but she really hasn't any proof. The film mainly concerns Isabelle's attempts to solve the hospital's continuing problems. The film is well cast with Dr. Philip suitably stern, morose and unyielding and little Bambi sweet and innocent and unsure of her nursing capabilities. (She may have done better in the police force!) As a thriller there are no menacing gestures and the excitement is restricted mainly to the dialogue.

The operating theatre has an air of authenticity about it as do the surgeons and nursing staff going about their business with hyperdermic needles and scalpels. I must say I think it was amiss of the medical staff not to notice the puncture in the fresh Pentothal phials. A minor criticism perhaps. As for the disappearing patients, it is a well known fact that frustrated patients do discharge themselves on occasions at short notice.

These thrillers are often conceived in such a way with clues that deceive. Consequently, with this in mind I carefully explore the motives of each character. I regret to say that I was tricked into coming to a wrong conclusion about the perpetrator of the crimes.

If you like hospital dramas and are not booked into an operating theatre in the near future, this film is for you.