True/False Films

Antoine

In person: director Laura Bari

Like a lost Nouvelle Vague classic à la Truffaut or Malle, the indefinable, playful Antoine plunges us deep within the imaginative mind and skewed point of view of one exceptional child, five-year-old Antoine Houang. Antoine has been totally blind since shortly after his birth — and of late has morphed into a detective, one with a surprising vocabulary and a gift for the radio. As one of his classmates says, "Antoine is a seer that does not see." Shot with flair in colorful, polyglot Montreal and featuring a cheeky score, this film is the remarkable result of director Laura Bari's uniquely creative partnership with her young collaborator. Quite improbably, through Antoine's meanderings, we're allowed access to an alternate world that can broadly be called "childhood," full of fun, games, inconsolable sorrows, passing frustrations and strange flights of fancy. Plays with Listening to the Silences (dir. Pedro Flores; 11 min.): a Welsh man who hears voices; and Pockets (dir. Andrew Hinton; 3 min.): the objects that find their way into our pants. (PS)

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