by RAF KATIGBAK

For a male teenager growing up in ’80s suburban Dollard-des-Ormeaux, George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead holds a particular import. Not only because the gratuitous carnage and gore provided by chunks of exploding zombie heads are like a soothing balm on a ’burban adolescent’s tortured soul, but also because the film takes the dreary, mind-numbing experience that is West Island life and gleefully blows it apart with an AK-47.

For those not familiar with the horror classic, Romero set the second film in his Dead quadrilogy in a deserted mall, where his protagonists take refuge fending off armies of suburban undead who, as one character surmises, have returned there partially because of “some kind of instinct” and because it “was an important place in their lives,” but in my opinion, was possibly also thanks to the huge “25 per cent off Braaaaaiiiiins!” sale at the Price Choppers.

If, like me, you grew up in the West Island, the mall was a centre point of social activity not just for wayward youths and teenage ne’er-do-wells, but also for families, for whom “going to the mall” was their idea of spending quality time together; caring through consumerism, sharing through shopping. While Romero often refutes the notion that his films are social commentary, anyone who’s witnessed the glassy-eyed stares of holiday shoppers in the downtown core would agree that the man had a point.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, shopping centres have become a defining part of Montreal’s identity. When travelling abroad, declarations of Montreal-ness are often met with excited inquiries about our “underground city,” which, as we all know, is less an ancient subterranean civilization ruled by mole-men with huge translucent eyes and quarterstaffs made of stalactites, and more a series of malls stuck together via tunnels. Which, no doubt, sounds rather unimpressive to anyone who hasn’t tried shopping above ground in below 40 temperatures.

While Montreal may have embraced mall culture out of necessity, I myself have become obsessed with it for other reasons. What those reasons are, I’m not exactly sure; like Romero’s zombies, I’m somehow impulsively drawn to shopping malls. Perhaps, as an ex-suburbanite, mall life is encoded in my DNA (sitting somewhere between the defective Will Smith-is-cool gene and the calling-the-Tragically Hip “the Trag” gene).

Or it may be that the era in which many malls were built give them that utopic ’60’s/’70s architecture that I love so much. Or maybe it’s the steamy secret history of our malls (guess which downtown mall is a world-famous gay cruising spot?) or the fact that some of the most interesting and colourful characters in Montreal can be found nursing coffees all day in their food courts. My obsession with local malls runs so deep that my roommate and I spent an entire afternoon trying to find which Montreal shopping centre provided the setting for the opening sequence of David Cronenberg’s Scanners (it was 20/20 University).

My search for weird and wonderful Montreal malls has taken me from Marché Langelier (the flea market underneath the Wal-Mart at Langelier metro, where they also have a mind-blowing country bar complete with black-light square dancing), to Plaza St-Hubert, where you can not only see some of the creepiest baby mannequins in the world, but you can pick up something for the whole family: a latex peek-a-boo cat suit for the wife, a $500 mint in box original Luke Skywalker toy for the kid, a puffy hot-pink satina/chiffon prom dress for the teen daughter, and a Sir John A. MacDonald action figure (complete with exciting accessories like a book and an end table) for, well, I’m not exactly sure who.

All this to say, what I love about this city, what makes it truly unique, isn’t as tangible as a music festival or a parade. It’s the strange nooks and crannies, the forgotten architecture and bizarre characters, the twilight zones that occur in a city that is constantly at odds with itself. It’s something that can’t viably be packaged at a travel agent and sold on a pamphlet. Unless of course the pamphlet read: “Montreal: 25 per cent off BRAAAAAAAIIIINS!!”

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca

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