Flashback

written and directed by Caroline Vigneaux

• Release: 11 November 2021
• Format: Feature Film
• Genre: Comedy
• Audience: Adults
• Content: Definite Time Travel
• Original Language: English

Attends . . . si maman n'épouse pas papa, je vais pas naître. Je viens de me tuer.

Wait . . . if Mom never marries Dad, I won’t be born. I just killed myself.

English

VARIANTS

2 English variants

TRANSLATIONS

Translations to German, Italian, Spanish

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

• Stone Age (3.4 Ma to 3000 BC: Paleo/Epipaleo/Meso/Neo/Chalcolithic): briefly
• Middle Ages (AD 476 to 1454): Joan of Arc
• Circa AD 1700 to 1799: 1793
• Circa AD 1800 to 1899: meets George Sand on 6 April 1850 and Napoleon in 1803.
• Circa AD 1900 to 1929: the Curies in 1906
• Circa AD 1960 to 1969: Charlie sees her parents open their first bank account in 1964.
• Circa AD 1970 to 1999: the trial of Marie-Claire Chevalier in 1972 and her parent’s home on 8 May 1982
• Circa AD 2000 to 2099: starting time period

Timeline Models

• Do Over: After traipsing through history, Huburt gives Charlie a do-over of the court case that started everything in motion.
• Multiple Naive Timelines: Charlie changes at least one timeline when she alters her own birthdate. Overall, though, it’s not about the timelines.

Time Travel Methods

• Magic Time Travel: Although most of Chrlie’s journeys are accompanied by crashes of some sort, the slips through time are clearly manifested by Hubert’s magic and not random timeslips.

Themes

• Grandfather Paradox: Charlie muses on whether she just stopped her parents from getting together.
• Meeting or Viewing Ancestors or Descendants: Charlie meets her parents and grandparents.
• People from Different Times Look Exactly Alike: We noticed one point where a woman in the middle ages looks exactly like Charlie’s friend Noémie. There were likely other cases that we didn’t notice.
• Self-Visitation: Charlie meets herself as a child.
• Time Travel Guide
• True Histories: Charlie played a role in various parts of history such as the death of Pierre Curie’s death.
• What Year Is It?: Charlie asks the question in 1982.

Real-World Tags

• Aristide Briand
• George Sand
• Gisèle Halimi
• Joan of Arc
• Marie-Claire Chevalier
• Marie Curie
• Maximilien Robespierre
• Napoleon
• Neanderthals and Other Cavemen
• Nicolas de Condorcet
• Olympe de Gouges
• Pierre Curie
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Universal Suffrage Movements: France, 1945
• Witch Trials: Normandy, AD 1431
• Women’s Liberation Movement

Fictional Tags

• Deities: In the credits, Hubert is depicted as God.

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

1. From Charlie’s Paris apartment, circa 2021 ⋙ to a pig sty in Normandy, [d]May 1431[/d]. Note: A fall knocks out Charlie, and she wakes in Normandy where she is tried along with Joan of Arc for (among other things) wearing pants. Each of the subsequent journeys is also taken by Charlie.
2. From a river in Normandy, [d]May 1431[/d] ⋙ to a Paris bank, [d]1964[/d]. Note: The passing bus, marked D’Italie, identifies the street as being in Paris.
3. From a Paris taxicab, [d]1964[/d] ⋙ to the Stone Age.
4. From the Stone Age ⋙ to a field near George Sand’s home, [d]1850[/d].
5. From George Sand’s home, [d]1850[/d] ⋙ to a meeting of the French Constituent Assembly, Paris, [d]1793[/d]. Note: to hear Olympe de Gouges and Nicolas de Condorcet present the Declaration of the Rights of Women.
6. From a meeting of the French Constituent Assembly, Paris, [d]1793[/d] ⋙ to a Paris walkway with boom boxes and skateboarders, [d]8 May 1982[/d]. Note: On the first International Women’s Day, Charlie sees her parents and remembers that her father was an abuser.
7. From a street outside her parent’s home in Paris, [d]8 May 1982[/d] ⋙ to Rue Dauphine, Paris, [d]6 April 1906[/d]. Note: After unintentionally killing Marie Curie’s husband, Charlie convinces the powers-that-be to hire Marie in his place.
8. From a Paris lecture hall, sometime later, possibly still in [d]1906[/d] ⋙ to Napoleon’s home, [d]1803[/d]. Note: Charlie meets and seduces Napoleon.
9. From a prisonyard, [d]1803[/d] ⋙ to a polling station in France, [d]29 April 1945[/d].
10. From a polling station in France, [d]29 April 1945[/d] ⋙ to Charlie’s Paris apartment, circa 2021. Note: Charlie returns to the moment of waking in the morning on the day she first left.

INDEXER NOTES (SPOILERS!)

• Debut—This film is sometimes confused with the earlier <a href='https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt8372094%2F'>2020 film of the same name</a>, a.k.a. <em>The Education of Fredrick Fitzell.</em> For example, we suspect that the UAE release listed for the <a href='Caroline_Vigneaux'>Caroline Vigneaux</a>’s time travel film at the <a href='https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt14371426%2Freleaseinfo'>IMDb</a> is actually the earlier film (see the earlier film’s release data at <a href='https%3A%2F%2Fen.kinorium.com%2F1675636%2Fpremiers%2F'>Kinorium</a>). Because of this, we ignore that UAE release and consider the debut to be <samp>11 November 2021</samp>.
• Credits—(1) a film by <a href='Caroline_Vigneaux'>Caroline Vigneaux</a>; (2) scenario, adaptation and dialogue by <a href='Caroline_Vigneaux'>Caroline Vigneaux</a> with the participation of <a href='Ya%C3%ABl_Langmann'>Yaël Langmann</a>; original idea by <a href='Caroline_Vigneaux'>Caroline Vigneaux</a>.