
'Red Island' Blu-Ray Review - A Reflective, Child's-Eye View Of Colonization
Simultaneously a sensual evocation of discovering the adult world and a sober reflection of what it represents, Robin Campillo's anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed 120 BPM weaves together the personal and political in a 'visually spectacular [and] masterful portrayal of colonialism through a child's eyes' (The Upcoming).
For in-depth thoughts on Red Island, please see my colleague Will Bjarnar's review from its original theatrical release here.
Video Quality
Red Island arrives on Blu-Ray courtesy of Film Movement with a sumptuous 1080p presentation that perfectly captures the look of the film. This is a visually resplendent film with a significant amount of time spent around the community, and the camera soaks up every single moment of it. There is a fetching amount of detail in close-up shots, along with wide shots of the beautiful scenery. Colors are deftly saturated and especially vibrant within the foliage. Skin tones look natural, and there are some wonderful facial details present. Black levels are solid with no obvious crush, and highlights avoid blooming under the bright sun. Compression artifacts and other digital anomalies are fortunately not an issue. The film looks great in high definition.
Audio Quality
The Blu-Ray comes with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track in the original mixture of French and Malagasy that sounds lovely. The movie is primarily dialogue-driven with room to observe and luxuriate in the soundscape as a whole. Dialogue is clear without being burdened by the score or sound effects. This is not a film that commands a particularly robust low end, but there is some valuable texture at points. The track shakes things up with sounds of nature emanating out of the speakers. The film makes good use of panning effects to make the island come alive. Environmental sounds come through distinctly in the side and rear speakers. Overall, this track does a tremendous job of representing the film. Optional English subtitles are available.
Special Features
Audio Commentary:
Director Robin Campillo provides a commentary track in which he discusses the process of making the film, the inspiration for the narrative, the fairy tale qualities, the performances, and more.
Trailer (1:56)
Booklet:
A multi-page booklet featuring the essay 'Masks Off: On Robin Campillo's
Red Island
' by film critic Sam Cohen is provided here. This piece gives a well-rounded analysis and context for the historical aspects, themes, and plot developments, which strengthens your appreciation overall.
Final Thoughts
Red Island provides a unique entry point into the colonization of a community as seen through the wide, deeply observant eyes of a kid. Director Robin Campillo weaves in the stories of multiple different members of the community, but the limited lens means that some of the narratives feel a bit incomplete or superfluous. There is a mixture of tones that mostly works out well, but the clashes are jarring in a few key moments. The performances of the young newcomers are quite good, and the adults in the ensemble all feel completely authentic to the time period. It is not always the smoothest path, but the narrative journey is worth taking. Film Movement has provided a Blu-Ray with a splendid A/V presentation along with a valuable commentary track. Recommended
Red Island is currently available to purchase on Standard Edition Blu-Ray or with a Limited Edition Slipcover exclusively through Vinegar Syndrome.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Film Movement and OCN Distribution have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
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'You're going to see this flood of new stories that have never been heard before, from countries that no one would ever invest (in),' he added. 'Eventually the playing field between Hollywood and Kinshasa (in the Democratic Republic of Congo) will be levelled in terms of the quality of storytelling.' There are many outstanding questions. For one: What might AI do to the jobs market? Opinions differ. 'You're going to empower people working for you,' Okoye said. 'You're not going to replace them; you're going to make their jobs easier.' But that's assuming you have a job in the first place. AI is already taking on many mundane, repetitive tasks – tasks that might be done by entry level staff and trainees. 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The African Union is a few paces behind forming concrete policy, but the issue featured prominently its 2024 AI strategy report. A creative with no copyright on their work has few routes to make money from it. Okoye believes, for this reason and more, African animators should avoid web browser-based generative AIs and instead use AI in a localized workflow. Okoye uses software ComfyUI, into which she has fed drawings of her characters in different poses. 'You can train an AI model based on your character, so that the moment you connect this model to your local workflow, you say exactly what you want your character to do and it's doing it,' she explained. 'You just get back what you gave it – and it's your IP (intellectual property).' Forrest says Triggerfish is looking to develop an ethical 'AI-assisted pipeline,' though he can still find some sympathy for algorithms. 'If we have to brutally honest with ourselves, we were inspired by Disney, Pixar,' he said. 'I think art is always assimilating – I mean, Raphael was assimilating Michelangelo and Leonardo. It's always been about looking at what people are doing and saying, 'How can I being my perspective to this?' 'It's acceptable if humans do it. But the question is how acceptable is it when it's done by machines? Ultimately, I think the controversy will wear off.' Having creative control over your data inputs could have other benefits: namely, helping eliminate bias. Racial bias in AIs is well documented, from facial recognition technology recording much higher error rates among dark-skinned people than light-skinned, to large language models perpetuating negative stereotypes against speakers of African American English. Such 'techno-racism' extends into generative AI: artist Stephanie Dinkins even produced an exhibition out of AI's inability to accurately depict Black women. Okoye says in the past, some AIs have generated either generic or inaccurate imagery when prompted to create African characters. 'The only solution is to go local, create your characters, train your own model,' she reiterated. As for why AIs fall short, Forrest said that 'there is so little existing African content – especially in animation – that there is a lot less for (an AI) to understand.' Njomane pointed to AIs performing better in English and other Western languages, adding many often generate generic imagery of Africa. 'It's not being programmed with (Africans) in mind or even consulting them at all. And that's a huge problem.' Okoye outlined a dream scenario in which development funds or angel investors back studios to create diverse African characters and culturally specific assets to train an AI model. 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