Review: La Dernière Ombre by Filippi and Yvan (Vents d’Ouest, 2021)

This review contains spoilers.

La Dernière Ombre (The Final Shadow) by Denis-Pierre Filippi and Gaspard Yvan is set in Russia. Although neither the month nor the year are specified, I think it may be spring 1917. Both the Bolshevik revolution and World War I form the backdrop to this slow-moving and somewhat convoluted story.

The story opens with a German air attack on a group of Russian soldiers transporting their wounded. In the bloody aftermath, we meet the main characters: “Doc,” a civilian doctor, and his daughters Natalia and Irina, who are all inexplicably attached to this military expedition; Pavel, a wounded soldier acting as the girls’ caretaker; Captain Svoga, a Communist; and Lieutenant Kuliakov, with whom Svoga is ever at odds.

Doc recommends rest for the wounded men and, would you know it, one of the soldiers grew up in the area and knows the location of a nearby manor house. The baroness and her husband welcome them as guests, and that’s when the weirdness really begins.

Secret orphans in the attic! Ghosts chasing away potential rapists! Sometimes the men are represented as fantastical creatures, but whether this change is visible by other characters is unclear; is it the graphical equivalent of the omniscient narrator? And — more pertinently — what causes this change in the first place? The phenomenon seems to be linked to the Final Shadow, which Pavel explains is “a legend of the battlefield…the last thing that one sees. It has no face, just a kind of mask. Some people say that it’s Death itself coming to collect you.”

Artist Gaspard Yvan’s choice of unexpected angles and deliberate use of distance give the distinct impression that we are seeing events through the eyes of the Final Shadow itself. This feeling of furtive watching creates a somewhat unheimlich tension that infuses the story with a low-level but constant dread throughout.

La Dernière Ombre is a two-part series and I’m sure that all the disparate threads of the first volume will be woven together in the finale. However, I doubt that I will read it. While the practice of splitting a single story into two books seems to be common in the industry, in this case it badly undermines the authors. Because the first book functions almost solely to set the the scene for a final dénouement, it can’t stand alone. Furthermore, it moved too turgidly for me to really get excited about Part 2. In my opinion, the subtleties of both the plot and art would be better served by publishing the story as a single volume.

How integral is the war to the story? It’s a difficult question to answer. Svoga and Kuliakov embody the conflict between the Whites and Reds but it’s as yet unclear what purpose it serves. Generally, I felt that the story could have been set during any war, and at times I couldn’t remember whether its events were meant to take place during World War II or World War I.

Since I like stories to be grounded in a visually distinct place and time, I was particularly keen to read La Dernière Ombre when I found out that it was set in pre-revolutionary Russia. Hence my disappointment that the setting is not well-characterised nor does it seem to be particularly integral to the plot. Of course, the final book may leverage the specific time and place to a greater degree; but Volume I could, with just a few tweaks, easily be recast in Ukraine in 2022.

For all my complaints about the plot, however, one can’t deny the beauty of the art. I was already a fan of Gaspard Yvan’s colourwork from Le Voyage Extraordinaire, and in fact bought La Dernière Ombre because of his involvement. The art nouveau vibe creates a “window into the past” atmosphere tinged with melancholy and, as discussed above, Yvan’s masterly use of space and angles emphasises the uncanny aspect of the story.

Would I…

…read future books by these authors? Yes, but not on the strength of this story. Rather, it’s because I have enjoyed Filippi and Yvan’s previous work and am curious to see other artistic paths and choices that they take and make in the future.

…recommend this book? After much waffling, I’ve decided to answer in the affirmative. However, I’d suggest getting both Volume I and II at the same time as I think you will have a better experience as a reader.

…keep this book or send it to the second-hand shop? I’m keeping it for the art.