L'inventaire fantôme (2004) User Reviews

Phantom Pleasure

[Tikanjiah · 9/10 · 18 November 2006]

This was a very original concept and it was beautifully executed. The animation and the music in this short film give it an outer world feel.

It's the story of a bailiff that goes to a collector's home to seize some of his goods. When he finds the collector's secret storage room, he's in for a shock when he begins flagging objects with his "To be seized" tickets.

There is very little dialogs in this animated short, but in my opinion it doesn't make it any less good. In fact, it makes it more accessible because of the french voice-overs (although when I watched it, the few lines were subtitled). I'm French, so I can vouch that the translations were accurate and faithful to the original lines.

The only thing I can negatively comment on is that it's very short (I know, it's supposed to be short). But, I think another 5 minutes to explain why the bailiff goes to the collector's home would have been a nice intro. Perhaps it is fitting that the bailiff's motives are as obscure as the general "feel" of this short film.

It's hard to describe and comment on what I loved about this short animation without spoiling anything. Needless to say, I did not address the surprise ending - that, you'll need to experience for yourself.

Well worth seeing even if your French is less than stellar

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 9 September 2009]

I must warn the reader that my French isn't great, nor is my Spanish or German--though it's good enough in some cases to let me watch uncaptioned/undubbed shorts. So, in other words, while my knowledge of the language is far from great, this is a short that is watchable even if your command of French, like mine, is pretty poor. Considering that there isn't all that much of the language in the film and it's fairly obvious what is occurring, I strongly recommend that everyone try this film--especially since the graphics are absolutely amazing--although exactly how they did this film is beyond me. It looks like they used very, very realistic stop-motion puppets as well as CGI, but I can't really tell. However, it looked so nice that I am shocked the film hasn't received more attention abroad. Yes, it has a few nominations and an award, but no Oscar nomination--though it was, in my opinion, better than most of the other nominees for 2005.

The film is about a very stern looking man who has come to a very unusual flat to repossess the belongings of an old man in a wheelchair. However, again and again, the home seems to play tricks on the guy--driving him half-mad in the process. While the story is simple, the graphics (as I said above) are amazing. It's an exceptionally well made and beautiful story.