Following the sexual and political frankness of writer-director Robin Campillo's acclaimed film “BPM,” about HIV/AIDS activism in Paris in the 1990s, “Red Island” initially appears to be a throwback to cozier nostalgia. Life on a French military base in Madagascar in the 1970s, full of sunshine and the thrill of youthful exploration. That may seem an insensitive way to describe a time and place fraught with post-colonial tensions, just a few years before the African territory gained independence from the French community and became a full-fledged republic. But 'Red Island' is a more sobering work, slowly and unromanticizing an intentionally naive view of European family life before breaking sharply into a completely different perspective, even a completely different film.
The switch is both eye-catching and shocking. This is a structural pivot that makes the film easier to appreciate than to receive. But the autobiographical elements are keenly felt as Campillo intelligently grapples with the blind spots of his personal past as well as that of his national heritage. Unexpectedly absent from certain major festivals and receiving lukewarm reviews on home screen, “Red Island” doesn't offer quite as much assurance or brio as “BPM” or Campillo's directorial debut, “Eastern Boys,” but it still confirms its helmsmanship with a major name in cinema. I'm doing it. Modern French cinema is one that can fill huge period canvases with considerable visual imagination and sensory detail.
The film opens with a flourish of disturbing fantasy. It's a miniature caper set in a stylized toy town made of cardboard and felt, following the crime-fighting exploits of Fantômette (Calissa Oskal-Ool), a child superhero wearing a Zorro mask. It turns out to be the vivid imagination of ten-year-old Thomas (Charlie Vauselle), inspired by his favorite comic book series. Such daydreams are repeated throughout the film, representing a young mind easily drifting away from reality. Nevertheless, Thomas' daily life is full of adventure and excitement, which eventually unfolds on a tropical African island far from his homeland. He just needs to know where to look for it. Imitating Fantômette, he begins his nightly investigation.
Tomas's affable army officer father Robert (Quim Gutiérrez, exuding Belmondo-like charm) and his mother Colette (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) raise him and his siblings with vague generosity, without being overly concerned with their son's exploits. They become greatly distracted by the tensions in their marriage as Colette begins to doubt her husband's fidelity. The same goes for her. An atmosphere of shameless sexual freedom permeates the base, and soldiers frequent brothels staffed by local Malagasy women. One of them, Miangaly (Amely Rakotoarimalala), becomes the object of obsessive desire for a newly married recruit, Bernard (Hugues Delamarlière). Thomas' nocturnal snooping doesn't turn out to be a comic book crime, but it does make him an incomprehensible witness to fragments of adult pranks.
Campillo sensitively captures the transition between childish fantasy and disillusionment. This dovetails with the French's callous abandonment of colonial ideals. The days there are countless and everyone is waiting for the next chapter of their lives to begin. The Malagasy people, tirelessly reaching out for impending independence, are not so passive, and they serve as the backdrop for the film until Miangaly takes the narrative focus from a denouement centered on his people's revolution. Meanwhile, the white characters we have assumed to be collective subjects so far are thrown into the margins. It's a stark, pointed change that divides audiences. I wish Miangaly's character had been developed more richly in parallel with the others, but the symbolic impact of her delayed acquisition is clear.
There is a hint of self-annihilation in Campillo's relegation of his coming-of-age story. Even though the film never goes beyond that, it does acknowledge that his memories are small compared to the story of the island's earthquake at the time. A radical idea. But the family scenes still carry weight and pathos, as Thomas increasingly sympathizes with his mother's suppressed grief, and the gestures of Robert's alpha father (including, most bizarrely, gifting his child with a baby alligator) take on an almost nihilistic despair. It contains it. DP Jeanne Lapoirie captures Madagascar's scorched-orange days and wet, inky nights with equal saturated intensity, providing a fitting backdrop for hot, aching emotions on all sides. Campillo's reminiscences may have evolved and matured, but they certainly haven't disappeared.