La vie heureuse de Léopold Z

Gilles Carle's classic Canadian comedy is about Leopold Z Tremblay, a snowplow driver living in Montreal.

Leo is 32 going on 50.

He lives in a house that he rents from his boss, because he lost all his worldly possessions to the finance company.

He tried to get a house in his wife's name, but it didn't work out.

He met her at the unemployment insurance office.

The film takes place on Christmas Eve, as Leo is about to head out to clear the road.

Which makes him wonder why he has to work so hard all the time.

To meet the demands of his family, he needs money.

So he follows an ad to a loan agency.

He has bad credit, but they still give him the loan.

Instead of getting the list of items his wife had given him, however, he buys a fur coat to give her for Christmas.

While all his co-workers are out clearing the streets of snow, Leo is focusing on making the gift perfect.

Getting the card just right.

Even when his boss catches him...he chooses to wander around the mall, hoping to catch up with his old girlfriend- whom he drives around the city on a tour- instead of getting back to work.

She's a nightclub performer.

His son sings in the boys choir at St. Joseph's Oratory, where he and his wife plan to attend midnight mass.

But, before he's able to get back to work, the axle on his truck breaks.

Lucky for him, his boss is the nicest guy ever...so, instead of writing him up, he asks for his help to move some furniture he has purchased for his wife for Christmas.

Now they are both neglecting their duties.

And if they're able to make it to midnight mass in time...it'll be a miracle...

Shot in the style of the French New Wave, the whole film acts like a time capsule, capturing a snapshot of Montreal in the 60's for future generations.

Particularly in relation to the snow removal industry.

Adding a sort of documentary element to it's narrative presentation.

On top of this, we get to see Place Ville Marie, and the underground mall, some churches- including the newly (at the time) built St Joseph's Oratory, and a glimpse of the streets of Montreal.

It's all rather humourous, if only in a way that French-Canadians can appreciate.

But it's also rather endearing...with Leopold fitting that sort of anti-hero mold Canada has become renown for portraying it in it's films.

7 out of 10.

This is one of those mid-sixties NFB productions where rogue filmmakers took what was supposed to be a documentary or short film, turned it into a narrative feature, and basically created the Canadian feature film, such as it is. This one was supposed to be a documentary about snow ploughs, and was transmuted into this shaggy-dog story about an operator trying to get off shift to see his son sing at midnight mass and give his wife a mink coat. So as you can see, this one was NOT heavily influenced by the French new wave ;) The bulk of the movie involves a long social between the guy and his pal the boss, and jump cuts are strenuously avoided in ways that are more awkward than the jump cuts would have been. It's also a little overextended and clunky. It's 'working class' which I guess is the social selling point, but it's interesting how the filmmakers transmute that into this general conservatism. Also, it's dubbed, so the scene where the woman in the department store is talking non-stop English at them loses its whole point. Overall, this one is 'interesting,' 'a piece of history' etc., not something I'd recommend in and of itself, and useful in de-romanticizing pre-tax-shelter feature film-making in Canada - the scrappy circumstances of production show on screen, and not in a positive way.