Out of the past

The 27th Les Rendez-vous du cinema
québécois is soaked in nostalgia

STEPPING INTO THE ’60S: Mama est chez le coiffeur

by MATTHEW HAYS

For the past 27 years, organizers of the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (RVCQ) have arranged for Quebec’s film milieu and the public to celebrate the current state of the medium. It’s a laudable idea: a festival that allows those who haven’t caught some of the last year’s titles to catch up on their celluloid.

For critics, it offers an opportunity to look for trends and to assess the state of the business. Some years, it’s tough to find recurring themes or motifs. Not this time around.

Last year must have been a high water mark for Quebec cinematic nostalgia. We’ve had celebrated films that looked back wistfully to childhoods long since over—Mon Oncle Antoine, of course, and the adolescent-angst epic C.R.A.Z.Y.—but it seemed if you were lining up for a hit movie last year, chances are you were stepping into the past.

Léa Pool, one of Quebec’s leading auteurs, brought us Mama est chez le coiffeur (Mommy Is at the Hairdresser’s), a poignant story of a young girl working to maintain some semblance of family normalcy after her mother decides to leave them, set in 1966. Then there’s Une Eté sans point ni coup sûr (A No-Hit, No-Run Summer), Francis Leclerc’s equally poignant story of a dad trying desperately to help his son after he’s rejected from the local little-league baseball team. It’s the summer of ’69—a time when Montreal still had our cherished Expos franchise—and when 12-year-old Martin doesn’t make the team, his father decides to create an alternate team for all those boys and girls who didn’t make the cut. Not to be left out, Philippe Falardeau arrives with C’est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s Not Me, I Swear!), a film about a young lad dealing with his mom’s departure from the family in 1968.

3D ANNIVERSARY:
Facing Champlain, a Work in 3 Dimensions

Dark days

Another terrifically moving film about the past arrives with Ce Qu’il faut pour vivre (The Necessities of Life), Benoit Pilon’s bittersweet feature about an aboriginal man placed in a sanatorium in Quebec in the ’50s after he’s diagnosed with tuberculosis. The film features another brilliant performance from actor-filmmaker Natar Ungalaaq (Atanarjuat).

When Quebec filmmakers weren’t looking back, they weren’t exactly looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. There was addiction (Borderline), a school shooting (Le Banquet), teen prostitution (Derrière moi) and multiple murders (Cadavres). And prolific Montreal filmmaker Denis Côté returns with his new film, Carcasses. Standing aside from the pack in terms of its outlook is Michael Mackenzie’s Adam’s Wall, which attempts to show us the possibilities of emotional connection beyond cultural difference in a contemporary, multicultural Quebec.

The RVCQ also includes a strong documentary contingent. If you haven’t yet seen it, run—don’t walk—to see The Memories of Angels, Luc Bourdon’s stunning re-imagining of a series of NFB classics from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. Also from the NFB is Facing Champlain, a Work in 3 Dimensions, from Jean-François Pouliot. Made to mark Quebec City’s 400th anniversary, the movie combines live-action and animation and 3D filmmaking, and it’s showing for free every day at the NFB’s CineRobothèque downtown. In Ex Machina en Russie, Jocelyn Langlois takes a trip with Robert Lepage to Russia. Nollywood Babylon is an artful and lively meditation on Nigeria’s burgeoning film milieu, fuelled by voodoo, magic and the moralizing of the filmmakers, from Samir Mallal and Ben Addelman, the same team who brought us Discordia.

It’s also worth noting the Heat Wave portion of the festival, which focuses on Mexican film as part of a cultural exchange between RVCQ and a festival in Guadalajara. Films include Rodrigo Pià’s Desierto adentro, the FIPRESCI award-winning Lake Tahoe and Juan Manuel Sepúlveda’s La Frontera Infinita.

The RVCQ will also present a series of panel discussions and master classes to enhance the screening schedule. American superproducer Christine Vachon, the woman behind much of the New Queer Cinema, will offer a master class.

THE RVCQ SCREENS FROM FEB. 18–28.
INFO: RVCQ.COM