Qui a tué Bambi?

Isabelle ( Sophiie Quinton) a hospital nurse not yet fully certificated suffers from dizzy spells due to an ear problem. One of the senior surgeons Dr. Philip (Laurent Lucas) calls her Bambi. A stupid remark in my opinion and not befitting his character. The hospital looks ever so hygienic with its rooms and corridors in dazzling white and the doctors and nursing staff uniformed in white, white, white! But strange events are happening in this spotless hospital...patients are waking up under anaesthesia....patients are disappearing from their beds....what has gone awry?

As events unfold Isabelle, a sweet young thing, has strong suspicions about Dr. Philip's behaviour, but she really hasn't any proof. The film mainly concerns Isabelle's attempts to solve the hospital's continuing problems. The film is well cast with Dr. Philip suitably stern, morose and unyielding and little Bambi sweet and innocent and unsure of her nursing capabilities. (She may have done better in the police force!) As a thriller there are no menacing gestures and the excitement is restricted mainly to the dialogue.

The operating theatre has an air of authenticity about it as do the surgeons and nursing staff going about their business with hyperdermic needles and scalpels. I must say I think it was amiss of the medical staff not to notice the puncture in the fresh Pentothal phials. A minor criticism perhaps. As for the disappearing patients, it is a well known fact that frustrated patients do discharge themselves on occasions at short notice.

These thrillers are often conceived in such a way with clues that deceive. Consequently, with this in mind I carefully explore the motives of each character. I regret to say that I was tricked into coming to a wrong conclusion about the perpetrator of the crimes.

If you like hospital dramas and are not booked into an operating theatre in the near future, this film is for you.

I caught this film at the Toronto International Film Festival by accident - its yet another example of the rule that the best cinema you see is only seen when you least expect it.

This is a witty, suspenseful, and very French film. It concentrates around the relationship between a student finishing up her nursing degree in a work term at the local hospital and her relationship with a young male doctor who she gradually suspects, over the course of the film, of being a psychopath. It is primarily a drama set within the plot of a thriller. There is a low-key romance that stutters but refuses to start between Isabelle (nick named, to her dislike as `Bambi' by Dr. Philipp) and the Dr. Philipp himself, the villain. All occurring while patients and staff slowly disappear, and things go increasingly wrong at the hospital.

The lead actress (Sophie Quinton) is beautiful and plays her role excellently. Dr. Philipp is equally well played by Laurent Lucas as the cool doctor and the equally cool villain. He is suitably disconcerting and downright creepy when the situation calls for it

Marchand also successfully creates a creepy and almost romantic atmosphere in the film despite the white corridors and the bland environment of the hospital grounds in which it is shot. The film constantly shifts from the fluorescent white of the interior of the hospital to the dark sky and dimmed green of the landscape of the outdoor night shots: he uses this `non-environment' to focus more greatly upon the characters. What remained with me after viewing this film were the images of the two leads' faces. Marchand uses a lot of close-ups, and as the film progresses, he increasingly concentrates upon the protagonists, allowing their expressions and moods to drive the suspense and the drama as much as the dialogue.

Qui a tué Bambi is also a very witty film. It opens with a comic scene and is paced by well placed witty dialogue amongst the nurses and between Bambi and Dr. Philipp. Much of the pleasure in watching the film stems from it's dialogue as Marchand takes full advantage of his past experience as writer.

The film's one failing is that it does not build up to it's climax well: there is not enough sense of mounting tension. As a drama is quite successful, as a Hitchcockian thriller it is not nearly so.

This is one of those few films which one can enjoy watching simply for the pleasure of watching the craftsmanship of a skilled team of filmmakers as well as enjoying a well-told story.

"Qui a tué Bambi?" has big qualities:gore and special effects are almost absent and the story is wrapped in an agonizing atmosphere .

The director knows his classics: in turn ,I've thought of Henri-Georges Clouzot's "la Prisonnière" (the relationship between the doctor and the nurse which verges on sado-masochism) ,of Crichton' s "Coma" (there's an hospital where patients disappear,and one of their surgeons' behavior is dubious),of Polanski's "Rosemary's baby " (a character is in the middle of a strange conspiracy ,nobody believes her,but there's more: the jewel the doctor gives to the nurse strongly recalls the one Minnie Castevet gives to Rosemary;and in both movies the jewels had belonged to another woman (dead) before)and of "Carnival of souls" (the car wreck).

The director adds hints at Walt Disney's "Bambi" as well;the title is no misnomer: "Your mother will not come round anymore" " Your legs are giving way under you,just like Bambi" .

Perhaps the best ideas of the script are the "games" subject: an innocent game the nurses play in the corridor where they tell if a person is a man or a woman by the way they look at their fingernails; wicked games such as the consonants and the vowels one.You may remember in "the crying game" the story called "the scorpion and the frog" which comes back later at the end of that Jordan film . "The consonants and the vowels " game plays the same part here.It's downright disturbing when the nurse plays it for the first time in a hellish nightclub.The second time,not only the heroine but also the audience can play too.

The two leads are convincing and they never overplay ,which is a tour de force in such a context.One can regret the last minute .It comes almost as an anticlimax.

It's a good thriller.The director knows his classics.

A good thriller. At times it did feel like a made-for-TV film, but maybe that was due to the small cast and the constant hospital setting (both of which do give the film a claustrophobic feel).

Unfortunately I missed out on the Q&A session with the director who had attended an earlier showing at the Institut francais in London, otherwise I have nothing much else to add to the other comments posted here.

In short, a creepy film set in a hospital with a good enough cast - but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. One thing that I couldn't get out of my head though: all modern hospitals have CCTV cameras, which would have prevented the events in this film from taking place.

I really enjoyed this movie at the Cannes Film Festival.

Walking out the cinema, wearing my smoking tuxedo suit, I was shouting to myself what an awesome movie this is!

I love the psychopath, I love the main actress, the cinematography is absolutely cool. The story is cool.

This is maybe kind of like a David Lynch experience. Weird scenes, weird dialogs, weird camera-work, weird script. All this weirdness, and concentrated beautiful set-ups makes the film very cool.

I rate it 8/10.