Who Killed Bambi? (2003)

Touches You

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I have just finished to see the movie and I came to IMDb, which seems to be a very serious movie website, to read what people wrote about "Qui a tué Bambi?". It's strange that everything I read turns to make the film a good quality one. The argument is poor. The music is non-sense (it tries to copy the soundtracks of David Lynch. And I still do not know how can somebody quote him here). It's far from anything we had in history of cinema like Lynch, Kubrick's and so.If Bambi was in Cannes, I'm starting to doubt about the festival as well. And it's impressive how can the media support it. I've seen some French movies and I believe this is the worst one, it's so young as Facebook. The film was made for cocktails, good for globalized children.

I missed the first 15 minutes or so and that might be why the ending left me as confused as it did. I mean, what happened to the doc? Was the forest and the hole part of a dream? Was the whole movie a dream? Did I fall asleep and dream it all myself? In any case, I found this to be pretty good. It's slow, of course, by the standards of, say, "Coma", or "Freddy and Jason Haunt a Hospital," but the visual images, the score, and the acting make up for it and keep a viewer's attention engaged.The visual images are striking in their sterility and simplicity. It's not not like any hospital you've ever been except maybe in a couche-mar. The hospitals I'm familiar with -- the better ones -- have people bustling about night and day, and the floors have coded colored lines on them. This hospital is mostly empty. And oddly lighted. Even the OR is dark except for some dramatic lighting over the patient etherized upon the table. In the corridors, the FLOORS seem to emit their own white light.There is hardly any score to speak of. There is usually an ominous discordant electronic hum. Aside from that there is only a slight groan from an opening door and the squeak of rubber soles on polished linoleum. Well, an occasional scream too.The acting is fine on everyone's part. Dr. Phillip's role doesn't call for much except a haughty look and a stern tone. But Isabella is just about right. Few people have ever looked so winsome and helpless. She has a slight figure and the face of an adolescent girl. (Try to imagine Gerard Depardieu in the part.) The story itself is rather routine. We've seen it in one or another variation before. But this is a well-done example of the genre, worth catching.

A student nurse Isabelle suspects a mysterious surgeon Dr. Philipp who basically lives his life in the hospital day and night, is responsible for a series of accidents that happen during surgery and the disappearance of a female patient.While watching the opening 15 minutes you'll be thinking this is going to be an incredibly well made thriller, but actually, while it does look superb and very slickly done, it was just too bad that the actual story didn't follow the same suit. The lack of surprises and the familiar pattern of the plot really did seem to hurt it. Gee, I really wanted to love this film, but no matter how hard it tried to enthral and to be clever, you'll keep on thinking this could've been a whole lot better and more original if it didn't derail itself into recognisable territory halfway in and become rather repetitive. But like I typed before it had some subtle nightmare feel within its appearance. It just haunts your mind! The sterile hospital setting was made to great use. It was incredibly cold, and disquieting, especially during the night sequences when most of the startling moments pop up. Most of the film took place there and it was eerie as hell! But also the tantalising score that's smoothly enticing gave it a strikingly menacing aurora, but still somehow pulled you in. There was such just such a great sense of dread created. Plus nudity and flesh was depicted rather graphically within it's material, for some it might be erotic, or for others rather sleazy.The performances were decent. Laurent Lucas is truly unsettling as Dr. Philipp and Sophie Quinton brings a naive persona to Isabelle. You really do care for her and despise Dr. Philipp. There's also some okay support roles that add to the film. The down side was there was such a carefree approach, which made it rather monotone to sit through. Sure, this is a slow psychological thriller, but really it does goes on for far too long. What makes the momentum drag is that is falls into many different clichés and familiar patterns, sometimes nothing really was happening at all. During the first half your caught up in the mystery of Dr Philipp, which played on the things we don't see, but the in the second half all of this change and the mystery was starting to wore thin. But it's the third act where things kind of go pear shape. Things start to get all arty, disjointed and tried to hard to be clever in its context. I didn't mind the downbeat, but bizarre ending. It's just I didn't know what it was trying to come across as, or imply by it? From what I grasp the plot is about making your own fate or maybe it's story which plays on people' fears … nah, it's actually about freaking people out of staying overnight in a hospital, but then again that's just my thoughts. I just didn't think it was that smart as it was trying to be. Although while watching it, how the film played out and certain touches, Hitchcock does kind of ring a bell.Overall, this French thriller just left me feeling indifferent. Looks great, highly atmospheric, but I can't say the same about the story.

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.