Red Island
A hypnotic coming-of-ager from Robin Campillo, drawing on his own childhood growing up in one of France’s last colonial outposts (Madagascar) for Red Island (L’île rouge), a story about a little boy who watches and learns as the French expat community do their thing. It is beautifully observed and gorgeously put together but it’s the sort of subject matter which, in the wrong hands, would be all sorts of boring. Campillo, though, is a great film-maker and with open nods masters like Abel Gance and Eisenstein, he assembles his film poetically. It is an intoxicating experience. And yet, superficially, it is done as if this were cold, clean and factual storytelling. Life on … Read more
