The Fairy

• Tom Dawson
• 17 July 2012

A knowing yet innocent absurdist love story from Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy

Directed by the Belgian-based mime artist trio Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy (the people behind 2008’s Rumba), this whimsical, Tati-esque fairytale plays like a live-action cartoon, albeit one filled with gawkily acrobatic human actors. Its setting is the heavily industrialised Normandy port of Le Havre, where a hotel night watchman Dom (Abel) encounters the titular fairy, Fiona (Gordon), who promptly grants him three wishes. That she is an inmate of a local psychiatric institution is no obstacle, however, to Dom’s romantic ardour …

Actually the ‘story’ here – and the supporting cast include a severely myopic café-owner (Romy), some illegal immigrants seeking to escape across the Channel, and an all female rugby team – is just an excuse for a series of absurdist gags involving everyday objects and improbable chases. It’s simultaneously a very knowing and strangely innocent film: either way it’s hard to resist at least an inward smile while watching Abel and Gordon perform an underwater ballet sequence in costumes fashioned from seaweed.

Selected release from Fri 27 Jul.