Angst for the memories

>> Catherine Martin’s Dans les villes is a bleak,
melancholy existential drama, but in a good way

by MALCOLM FRASER

Local director Catherine Martin has made several acclaimed short films and documentaries in addition to 2001’s feature Mariages. In her newest effort, Fanny (Hélène Florent), a city parks worker, keeps happening into chance encounters with strangers who she feels compelled to help: a suicidal teenager (Ève Duranceau), a lonely elderly woman (Hélène Loiselle) and a blind photographer (multimedia superstar Robert Lepage). But her efforts to help her fellow human beings with their problems are, at some level, a way of avoiding dealing with her own private suffering.

Dans les villes is firmly entrenched in a certain, classic mode of European-style art film: the kind where nothing much happens because the plot is secondary (at best) to the theme, and that theme is the overwhelming alienation and profound existential angst of contemporary life. There are a lot of shots of people staring longingly into the distance, and even a fairly lengthy scene where Loiselle silently watches dust particles circling the air in her apartment. Put that way, it sounds like an excruciating snorefest, and indeed, if this kind of film isn’t your bag, you risk being bored silly. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for a serious art film, it has all the requisite elements: thematic depth, ambiguous meaning, unhurried pace, intense performances and deliberate style.

Martin’s directorial approach is extremely austere. It sometimes evokes late Godard with its literary quotations, minimal snippets of classical music and exquisitely composed, painterly shots where both camera and actors are almost motionless. But unlike the nouvelle vague’s grumpiest old man, Martin isn’t interested in deliberate obscurity, but rather in exploring universal malaise. The characters are all prone to melancholy moods, late-night panic attacks and spontaneous crying jags. Maybe it’s just the time of year, but I for one knew exactly how they were feeling.

The reasons behind all this angst are never explained in much detail, much less resolved, but Martin clearly isn’t going for a traditional narrative arc. She’s trying to create an atmosphere, and in that she clearly succeeds; whether it’s an atmosphere you want to be submerged in depends on your tastes and your mood, but she’s created an intelligent and very well-crafted film.

Dans les villes opens
this Friday, Feb. 23

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