Bonne Personne

I love looking at short films as they're not all that time consuming in my personal life but can offer some of the most fucked up and humorous situations I've ever seen. And, well, Bonne Personne is exactly the type of short film that I was looking to view and watch. This is a small film written and directed by Canada's Philippe Bourret who has worked on a number of other titles - mostly in the sound department - since 2011. His short First Night was released in 2014 though that one expanded a healthy length of thirty minutes. His newest short horror film, Bonne Personne, lasts under ten minutes but that does not mean it doesn't deserve a credible amount of attention. 

This short film is a very comedic way at looking at consequences of wrong actions. While Jasmine (Sandra Foisy) gets a tattoo from Pete (Robert Verret), she speaks with her friend Louise (Mylène Thériault). It's revealed that Louise is seeing another man who is a criminal who also happens to already have a girlfriend. While Jasmine gets annoyed by her friend and tells her what she is doing is wrong, Louise refuses to listen to her and does what she wants. 

The scene shifts to Louise at the gym. She ends off on her exercise and heads to the locker room, and is stalked by a hooded figure. After a brief scramble, Louise is stabbed by the hooded figure and it's revealed that it is Julie (Isabelle Stephen), the girlfriend of the criminal. When the criminal, Brian (Pierre-François Bouffard) arrives, he sympathizes with his girlfriend and makes sure that Louise doesn't make a peep about the crime. 

Now, none of this sounds funny or hysterical the way it is described, however there is most definitely a comedic vibe about the short. After Louise gets stabbed by a knife - a big knife at that - her guts are spilled out all over the floor still attached to her stomach. She barely even reacts to that, though, and has a conversation with Julie instead. All the while, when Brian finally arrives, he pays no attention to Louise and talks his way out of trouble with Julie. It's not the fact that she got stabbed that's funny, it's the way she hardly reacts, or the way anybody really reacts to her being stabbed with her guts out. They all act it out like, "Oh, she got stabbed. Typical." That's what made the short humorous to me. 

However, I have my complaints about the short as well. As I watched the film there was a wee bit of annoying background fuzz and static. That's not a deal breaker, but it was a tad bit annoying. The conversation between Louise and Jasmine also should have been one long shot rather than broken up by intense close-ups. That kind of broke the cinematic tension and brought me out of the film. And the only other complaint that I had was that the tattoo artist and the cleaner who comes in at the end of the altercation between Louise, Julie, and Brian was not that necessary. We got the idea that Louise's ordeal was not going to end well just the way Brian talked about it. 

Still, I'd recommend this short to anyone who is looking for something oddball-ish out of the lot. It's a simple scenario with a set up we've all seen before. It just doesn't play out in the normal fashion I'm used to. Nice job to everyone involved in this work!