Abstract

Robin Aubert’s 2017 film Les Affamés is a zombie genre film, set in an unspecified region of rural Quebec. The first Quebecois addition of note to the zombie film genre, Les Affamés follows the few remaining humans who have avoided contamination from their infected, flesh-eating pursuers. The rustic setting provides a haunting backdrop as the protagonist, a bearded science-fiction devotee named Bonin, and his five companions, attempt to flee through the woods to safety, pursued by a screaming, blood-thirsty horde of their former friends and neighbors. Les Affamés functions in large part as an allegory for rural poverty and economic isolation. Decaying farmhouses, rusting tractors, and an abandoned mine are just a few of the iconic images that invoke the real-world struggles of once-healthy agricultural and mining communities in a twenty-first-century neo-liberal economy. This paper will focus in particular on the zombie as an avatar for Quebecois and, more broadly, North American rural decay, noting how Aubert uses a zombie virus as an allegory for depopulation and economic marginalization. Indeed, the Affamés of the film’s title also suggest the ravenous appetites of a capitalist system which, like the film’s titular flesh-eating monsters, appears insatiable.

摘要

罗宾·奥伯特（Robin Aubert）于2017年拍摄的电影《恋爱者》（LesAffamés）是一部僵尸题材的电影，拍摄于魁北克乡村的一个未指定区域。魁北克人首次在僵尸电影类型中添加音符，LesAffamés沿袭了为数不多的那些避免了受其感染，食肉的追赶者污染的人类。主角，留胡子的科幻小说奉献者博宁（Bonin）和他的五位同伴试图逃离树林到安全地带，他们的前任朋友和邻居们尖叫，嗜血，追逐着他们，这片乡村般的环境给人留下了难以忘怀的回忆。LesAffamés在很大程度上充当了农村贫困和经济孤立的寓言。腐烂的农舍，生锈的拖拉机和废弃的地雷只是一些标志性图像，这些图像唤起了曾经健康的农业和采矿社区在二十一世纪新自由主义经济中的现实挣扎。本文将特别关注僵尸作为魁北克人的化身，更广泛地说是北美农村衰落的化身，并指出奥伯特是如何使用僵尸病毒作为人口减少和经济边缘化的寓言。的确，影片标题的Affamés也暗示了资本主义制度的狂热胃口，就像影片的名义上的食肉怪物一样，这是无法满足的。