
Cannes Review: Fabrice Gobert’s Lights Out (Simon Werner A Disparu…)
Posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
What many critics suspected has turned out to be true: this year’s line-up at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival has been disappointing. Many have complained that the films as a whole have been overlong, dark, depressing, and lacking hope. I would tend to agree with most of these criticisms. After a week of searching, I was finally able to find a film that is much more “my speed” than the rest of the selections.
Fabrice Gobert‘s Lights Out is a film set in a suburban French high school during the early 1990’s where a student named Simon Werner has disappeared. Did he run away? Was he abducted? Murdered? The movie begins at a drunken house party, where two teenagers go for a walk and discover a dead body in the woods. Is it Simon’s body?