Insider music

Dédé, à travers les brumes, a biopic of late
Colocs singer Dédé Fortin, is for fans only

FUNKY FIREBRAND: Sébastien Ricard

by MALCOLM FRASER

André “Dédé” Fortin was the singer and chief songwriter of ’90s-era Quebec sensation les Colocs. As portrayed by Sébastien Ricard in Jean-Philippe Duval’s biopic Dédé, à travers les brumes, he’s an archetypal difficult artist—a womanizer, a dictator to his bandmates and a rock star prone to diva fits. His artistic angst was compounded by romantic troubles (a succession of girlfriends refusing to put up with his tomcatting) and political turmoil—a militant sovereigntist, he was crushed by the loss of the 1995 referendum. Haunted by demons, he took his own life in 2000.

Duval tells the story in a fractured timeline, divided between Fortin’s early years in the ’80s Montreal music scene, a tormented recording session in Northern Quebec in the ’90s, and his final days. Although the film ably evokes the bohemian spirit of Montreal during the last recession, it also provides a grim reminder of our city’s enduring “funky” fashion atrocities—on the night of the referendum, Fortin dresses up for Quebec’s independence in a shiny gold vest.

We see the fiery ups and downs of his relationships, and his intense friendships with bandmates Pat (Dimitri Storoge), a French harmonica virtuoso who’s dying of AIDS, and Saskatchewan-born guitarist Mike (Joseph Mesiano), who Fortin takes on despite him being both “an anglo and an Indian” (as he puts it with typical sensitivity). With so many social hot buttons, you can see how a biopic was almost unavoidable.

Ricard is quite good in the title role, giving himself fully to Fortin’s mood swings and passionate rants. With the non-linear timeline and a few animated sequences, the film makes admirable efforts to avoid biopic clichés. And unlike hagiographies like Walk the Line, the film doesn’t shy away from or dilute its subject’s dark side.

But with such an unlikeable subject, you’d have to be a big fan of les Colocs’ music to appreciate his story. Maybe it’s an anglo thing, but if you’re like me, the combination of a reggae groove, blues harmonica, Tam-Tam congas and an extremely busy vocal line don’t add up to musical gold. Chock full of this genre of music and taking its subject’s significance for granted, Dédé is decidedly for fans only

DÉDÉ, À TRAVERS LES BRUMES OPENS
THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 13