Today, only a handful of cinephiles have heard about Alain Mazars, Alain Fleischer, Cyril Collard, Jean-Claude Biette, Guy Gilles or Gilles Groulx whose birthday was yesterday. Over the past few hours, i have already watched this 2 times and i'm still happy as it took a while, but what a pleasure to see how Groulx captured the inner problems of Montreal.
In the aftermath of the quiet revolution, Barbara (Barbara Ulrich) and Claude (Claude Godbout) are unhappy couple who little by little reveal their thoughts and dissatisfaction with the sad state of affairs occurring in the country after the Québec nationalist movement. It starts with both revealing their identity in the beginning of the film after the note by the director. The couple are going through a crisis, feeling unwanted as Claude condemns Barbara's bourgeois lifestyle, he doesn't get along with her mindset and thoughts. The story itself is minuscule and is based on an the scenario of the class division, socio-political climate in Montrral 1964. There are monologues shot in pseudo-documentary style that shows the fragments of a lost hope, disillusionment, where the political discourse is accompanied by thoughts of the characters.
The cinematography is brilliant and poetic, to the point that the scene in which Barbara contemplates herself in the mirror evokes the pessimistic side of Claude without forcing mandatory montage shots to expose the toxicity. The music deserves a special mention and it follows almost all movements as if accompanying the inner restlessness of capturing the timeline. It is the only known film soundtrack by Jazz legend John Coltrane ever recorded as he was commissioned by the National Film Production Agency of Canada to take charge as the composer. Brownie points for the reference to Jean Vigo, a French film Icon whose influence on The French New Wave was huge inspiring so many directors. But i cannot deny the fact that this inspired by the works of New wave all within a rhetorical scheme closer to Jean-Luc Godard. Nonetheless, this is a landmark film in the development of cinema in Quebec and i guarantee that arthouse fans will love it for the aesthetic pleasure as the technical side of the film is almost flawless.
