Quarter Lointain (2010)

Directed by: Sam Garbarski | 100 minutes | drama, fantasy | Actors: Pascal Greggory, Jonathan Zaccaï, Alexandra Maria Lara, Léo Legrand, Laura Martin, Laura Moisson, Pierre-Louis Bellet, Tania Garbarski, Laurence Lipski, Louis Bianchi, Théo Dardenne, Augustin Lepinay, Pauline Chappey, Juliette Lembrouk, Jean-François Wolff, Charlie Dupont, Jacques Berenbaum, Odile Matthieu, Clément Chebli, Patrick Zimmermann, Norbert Rutili, Valerie Bodson, Raoul Schlechter, Victoire Metzler, Lily Dupont, Alexia Depicker, Jirô Taniguchi, Evelyne Didi, Sophie Duez, Lionel Abelanski

Going back in time to put things right and thus send your own future or that of others in an alternative direction, it sometimes haunts everyone’s head. What would happen if you could dive back into your wonder years with an assimilated view of things? Unfortunately, our decisions, deeds and actions in the past are irreversible and largely determine the path of life that a person walks. The theme of second chance has been touched upon countless times. Nevertheless, the German-born Belgian filmmaker Sam Garbarski manages to stage a beautiful and above all beautiful film with a not so remarkable idea.

At least Garbarski had good source material on hand to tell his story. ‘Quartier Lointain’ is based on a celebrated manga comic by the Japanese Jiro Taniguchi (who also appears briefly in the print). In any case, the comic was an outsider in the genre that, to laymen, is synonymous with brutal and aggressive pictures in which every nuance seems to have disappeared. Taniguchi enriched the Japanese version of the comic strip with this philosophical and human treatise in which memories play a crucial role.

Comic artist Thomas Verniaz (Pascal Gregory) is on the brink of mental abyss. A burnout lurks around the corner because the man is shy of ideas and his family life also seems to have been taken over by the routine. On the return journey from a fair, he takes the wrong train and ends up in a godforsaken hole, which turns out to be his native village. To pass the time, he wanders around and finally stops at his mother’s grave. There he loses consciousness for mysterious reasons. When he regains consciousness, he is again a fourteen-year-old teenager trying to avoid a family breakup with some foreknowledge.

From the moment Thomas reappears as a boy growing up in 1967, the initially shabby village turns into a warm and idyllic retreat where it is good to stay. The dressing of the characters and the setting are prepared to perfection. You would almost consider it a privilege to be born during this period. Complemented by the charming and recognizable music of the French collective Air, ‘Quartier Lointain’ is one long contemplation and yearning for times gone by. But it is precisely those memories that should sharpen Thomas’s consciousness in the present tense in order to come to a conclusion about his own life.

Gabarski knows very well that cases from the past are irrevocably closed. After all, a person can’t just mess around in time. ‘Quartier Lointain’ is therefore not a ‘Back to the Future’ but rather a beneficent dream from which it may be a painful awakening, but which in any case makes you think.