Red Island
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).
Cast
- Nadia Tereszkiewicz
- Quim Gutiérrez
- Charlie Vauselle
- Amely Rakotoarimalala
- Sophie Guillemin
- Hugues Delamarlière
- "Confirms its helmer as a major name in contemporary French cinema — one who can fill a sprawling period canvas with considerable visual imagination and sensory detail."
- "***** It’s a compelling, visually exquisite piece of work."
- "Floats along as if borne on the breeze of memory, lilting between vignettes that murmur with hidden meaning."
- "Lush, perceptive...The film has a miraculous ability to ground itself in reality while also retaining, in Thomas, the feeling of a tender childhood naiveté."
- "A film dripping with the kind of irony and atmosphere that Marguerite Duras could appreciate, only much more playful...."
- "The oddly paradoxical RED ISLAND is at once lackadaisical and urgent, relaxed but with a clear eye for how swiftly everything will end for the characters at its center."
- "Frequently poignant and always visually spectacular, Campilo’s Red Island is a masterful portrayal of colonialism through a child’s eyes."
- "Red Island is an affecting, intensely personal film from Robin Campillo, inspired by his own childhood days on Madagascar."
- "It captures beautifully and atmospherically a sense of mounting tension as the military men grapple with their impotency in a newly independent country."
- "A film that is very bold in its intention of masked intelligence and very successful in its approach to the perception of the imperceptible."
- ""Red Island becomes more than a young boy’s simple coming-of-age tale and instead a covert treatise on the subject of colonial rule."
Awards & Recognition
Golden Seashell
San Sebastián Int'l. Film Festival
BFI London Film Festival
Rendezvous with French Cinema, Lincoln Center
Dragon Award
Göteborg Film Festival
Carmel Award
Haifa Int'l. Film Festival