Minimal mayhem

Denis Côté’s Elle veut le chaos is a subtle,
understated drama about rural
mobsters and a teenage girl

TORMENTED TEEN: Ève Duranceau

by MALCOLM FRASER

Denis Côté lived many a film critic’s dream when he left his position at the Mirror’s francophone sister paper, Ici, to devote himself to filmmaking with his 2005 feature debut Les états nordiques. His follow-up, last year’s Nos vies privées—dense, slow-paced, shot on ultra-lo-fi video and almost entirely in Bulgarian—was as bold as it was difficult. His third feature, Elle veut le chaos, establishes him as a self-confident director, in command of his craft and unafraid to take risks.

Shot in gorgeous black and white, the minimal story takes place in a remote corner of Quebec farmland. Coralie (Ève Duranceau) is a teenage girl, bristling with all the frustration and extreme mood swings that entails. Her father Jacob (Normand Lévesque) has just had her mother committed after an only-hinted-at last straw of crazy behaviour. Laurent Lucas plays a boarder just returned from a stint in the slammer, while down the road, aging mob boss Alain (Réjean Lefrançois) is having management problems with loose-cannon lieutenant Spaz (Nicolas Canuel).

It’s difficult to describe the plot or characters further, as Côté leaves a lot unsaid and delivers important information very slowly and deliberately. Suffice to say that a combination of extreme poverty, guns, drugs, imported Russian hookers, family secrets and teenage hormonal energy lead to a pile of trouble.

But although Côté manages the unorthodox story structure quite well, here plot takes a back seat to atmosphere. After the on-the-fly DIY energy of Nos vies privées, this film represents a 180-degree aesthetic turn—the tone is austere, with copious use of empty space in both the cinematography and the pacing. Aficionados of Jim Jarmusch or old-school Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu will feel right at home.

Côté also has an knack for casting. Duranceau, who played a similarly tormented teen in Catherine Martin’s Dans les villes, commands the screen with her unorthodox beauty, and a muted energy she shares with the men onscreen, all familiar faces from Quebec film and TV. By no means a feel-good movie, or appropriate for short attention spans, this is a subtle and understated drama that will please serious film fans, and leave them curious to see the talented Côté’s next move.