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down >> Québec-Montréal is an odd little ensemble film by MATTHEW HAYS
Québec-Montréal is one of those unusual, off-kilter ensemble films, featuring a diverse group of characters who veer off in different directions as they had down the same highway. It’s also, quite tellingly, a first feature-this time from filmmaker Ricardo Trogi-a film with enough audacity to make it interesting but enough flaws to make it feel pretty uneven. Trogi’s gaggle of characters are a mixed-up group. There’s a couple who is moving to Montreal from Quebec, but isn’t very harmonious at all about the move (he hates the bigger city and thinks she’s too eager to climb up the job ladder). Their rapidly building fight peaks when he passes on gassing up, leaving them stranded roadside. Another car carries three young men, all of whom begin to share intimacies as they drive along-soon learning a bit too much intimacy can prove a bad thing. Along the way, there are crossed wires between cars, hitchhiking, an entirely unexpected gas-sniffing scene and even a talking road sign. Trogi’s feature certainly has its funny moments, and got some laughs when it had its premiere at last month’s Comedia Film Festival. But Québec-Montréal also has its downsides. For a film about people moving along a highway, some of the scenes-and much of the film as a whole-feel mighty static. And as films with so many different characters and vignettes often go, this is a wildly uneven film. The feuding couple, for example, seemed the most intriguing duo of the lot; the three macho types in the car left me less captivated. The large ensemble film dynamic is an inviting one for young filmmakers, in that it allows for so much movement, variation and general shifting of gears. And Altman has made it all so inviting; I would argue his two biggest sprawling ensemblers, Nashville and Short Cuts, are his best works. But the endeavour to make such a film is also rife with risks, as Altman has mastered the genre so beautifully as to invite comparisons, wanted or not. Trogi (and co-screenwriters Jean-Philippe Pearson and Patrice Robitaille) deserve praise for stepping up to the plate anyway-it’s a daunting sub-genre to lock horns with. While they haven’t achieved Nashville heights, Québec-Montréal feels a bit like a slight, lesser Altman, like A Wedding or Cookie’s Fortune. For any faults Québec-Montréal may have, Trogi is clearly a director to watch. There are flashes of the clever and the flesh here, moments that left me eager to see what this filmmaker comes up with next. An ensemble dramatic comedy set on the Plateau, maybe? Stay tuned. : Québec-Montréal opens Friday, Aug. 2 >> Movie Listings |
