Saturday, November 13, 2021

Les Affames/Ravenous

Movie Name: Les Affames/Ravenous
Year of Release: 2017
Director: Robin Aubert
Starring: Marc-Andre Grondin, Monia Chokri, Charlotte St-Martin, Micheline Lanctot, Marie-Ginette Guay, Brigitte Poupart, Edouard Tremblay-Grenier, Luc Proulx, Didier Lucien, Robert Brouillete, Martin Heroux 
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
View Trailer

Synopsis and Review:
Actor/Writer/Director Robin Aubert managed to get a lot of attention with this release, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and went on to play across a variety of other film festivals, including Beyond Fest, Molins Film Festival, Mar Del Plata Film Festival, to name but a few. The film focuses on a series of characters, all of whom come together following a zombie outbreak. Most of these characters converge on the rural regions of Quebec, including the young and resourceful Bonin, who has kept patrol of what is happening in his area. He soon meets Tania, a woman with a bite mark, who states she was bitten by a dog. They also pick a young girl by the name of Zoe, and they all go to the residence of a group of survivors, Therese and Pauline. Therese and Pauline have taken in Celine, whose family has been killed, and who has since been a lone crusader killing zombies at every chance she gets. They collectively realize the farm is on the path of the infected, and they decide to flee. As the go on their way, two additional survivors join them, including a bitten one. The group continues on their way, but the infected are getting closer and closer.
Unlike the flashier and gorier "Dawn of the Dead" from Zack Snyder or even the show "The Walking Dead" (from creator Frank Darabont, adapted from Robert Kirkman's comic book), Robin Aubert focuses his attention on the impact a zombie epidemic has on remote and rural communities in Canada. The film has a pace of its own, where as the situations evolve, we get acquainted with the characters, who are going to comprise the bulk of the resilient group itself. As the survivors come together, we also discover a bit more about who they are, what their lives were before the outbreak occurred, and how the new situation has forced them to change their stances and in some cases, has forced them to grow up and come to terms with their own responsibilities. It's a film that tries to craft a rather authentic approach to the aftermath of such a devastating occurrence, but still and for all its unique point of view, its characters are somewhat rather briefly defined, which ends up its biggest flaw. However, it's a film that manages to create and illustrate the compelling and dangerous situations the characters find themselves in, all the while successfully rendering the relationships that are established between all of them. The cast is uniformly solid, the same going for the score from Pierre-Philippe Cote and cinematography from Steeve Desrosiers. Entertaining and worth watching.

0 comments: