Thanks
to France’s lingering colonialist mindset, it considers everything in the
Francophone world essentially French. Apparently, that includes Haitian voodoo—and
why not? They are the ones who created the circumstances it developed out of.
An entitled French school girl will be tempted to dabble in the mysterious
arts, which inevitably leads to dire consequences in Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi
Child, which opens this Friday in New York.
Melissa
was orphaned by the Haitian earthquake, but she still has her loving Aunt Katy,
a tutor and voodoo-practicing “Mambo” in France. Since her late mother was a
recipient of the Legion of Honor, the French government will cover her room and
board at an exclusive boarding school, founded by Napoleon himself for the
daughters of recipients of France’s highest honors. She is a little out of
place, but she still falls in with a group of four other friends, who are basically
shallow, self-absorbed teenagers—except pasty-white Fanny, who is especially
shallow and self-absorbed.
Fanny
is the sort of crush-blinded schoolgirl who sends long, dramatic letters to her
long-distance lover Pablo. The kind that are guaranteed to spook a player like
him into dumping her. She is the first to ask cultural insensitive questions of
Melissa, but then she will turn around and attempt a massive act of cultural
appropriation, for her own self-interest.
Fifty-five
years prior, Melissa’s grandfather Clairvius Narcisse meets an untimely death
via voodoo, but that is not the end of his story. The unfortunate man is
partially revived to serve as a “zombi” slave laborer (they leave the last “e”
off for cultural sensitivity).
Eventually,
both narrative strands crescendo in parallel, with Fanny pestering Aunt Katy to
cast a spell on Pablo, just when she should be preparing for a special ceremony
in honor of her father, Narcisse. Frankly, the pieces do not exactly fit
together perfectly, but the big picture is compelling. It isn’t horror or “elevated
horror,” but it still steadily builds in intensity and foreboding.
Wislanda
Louimat and Katiana Milfort are terrific as Melissa and Katy. Both have the
kind of screen presence to withstand Bonello’s long-held close-ups. In
contrast, Louise Labeque just comes across as merely icy and superficial as
Fanny, conveying no sense of any depth to her character. Ironically, Mackenson
Bijou brings out more subtle dimensions in his portrayal of a zombi.
Zombi
is
drastically different from Bonello’s prior films, lacking the flash of his Saint Laurent bio-pic and the dazzle of his surreal domestic terrorism thriller, Nocturama.
In a complete change of gears, Bonello slows down the pace, focusing like a
laser on his characters’ inner turmoil. Although initially baffling, the toggling
between time periods eventually pays off dramatically. Again, it isn’t horror,
but is still definitely holds genre movie appeal. Recommended for patrons of
French cinema and anyone fascinated by voodoo (in either PC or un-PC ways), Zombi
Chid opens this Friday (1/24) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.
