Zombi Child
(Bertrand Bonello, 2019, 103 min, France, French & Haitian Creole w/ subtitles, Color, DCP)
Haiti, 1962. A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, a Haitian girl confesses a family secret to a group of white boarding school friends. Equal parts teen horror reverie, serious study of the zombie myth, and open-ended riff on the persistence of the colonial past.
“Mixing political commentary, ethnography, teenage melodrama and genre horror, the film is an unashamedly cerebral study of multiple themes – colonialism, revolution, liberalism, racial difference and female desire – with its unconventional narrative structure taking us on a journey that’s as intellectually demanding as it is compelling.” — Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily
“Zombi Child is the kind of lithe and lucid dream that gets its tendrils round your brain stem, so that when all hell finally breaks loose, you can’t jolt yourself awake from its grip.” — Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
