C.R.A.Z.Y

For this new article, I would like to introduce a film that I saw a few years ago, which might be one of the most famous Quebec films. I am talking about C.R.A.Z.Y, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée in 2005.

So, C.R.A.Z.Y tells the story of a 15-year-old boy named Zac, who is the 4th boy of a five child family. The movie takes place in the 1960s and the 1970s in Quebec, between a conservative father names Gervais, and a very understanding mother named Laurianne.

Zac is a gay boy that tries to define himself, stuck between, his homosexual desires and his absolute admiration for his father.

The beginning of the movie shows how very early, Zac had some behavior that showed that he might preferred boys to girls. For example, at the age of 6, his mother gives Zac at his request, a baby carriage. But his father disagrees and says that playing with this would “turn him into a fairy”. The whole film shows how Zac tries to deal with his homosexuality, trying to repress it and dating women.

I really loved the 70s atmosphere, the incomprehensible Quebecker accent and expressions, the 70s haircuts and bellbottom pants. I also loved the young actor Marc André Grondin, who plays Zac, and who has now turned into a pretty handsome man, that you might have seen in “Bus Palladium”, two years ago.

Just to add a few words about the director, Jean-Marc Vallée directed the recent “Café de Flore” with Vanessa Paradis, which I haven’t seen.

So, what did you think about C.R.A.Z.Y ? Did you enjoy it as much as I did? Has anyone seen “Café de Flore”?

Denis Villeneuve and Incendie

Hey guys,

Today, I would like to talk about another Canadian director: Denis Villeneuve.

Denis Villeneuve did not direct a lot of films. He started in 1998 with “Un 31 août sur la Terre”, or An August 31st on Earth, and then directed Maeström in 2000, and Polytechnique in 2009. But he is mostly famous for his last film “Incendies”, adapted from the very famous Wajdi Mouawad drama.

I am extremely surprised to know that this movie has only had about 300,000 entries in France, because I actually loved this movie, it might be my favourite film of 2011, and it has been considered as one of the ten best films of 2011 by the New York Times.

The film tells the story of a middle-eastern Christian woman named Nawal, who dies after a stroke at the swimming pool. In her final requests, she asks her son Simon and her daughter Jeanne to go back to Lebanon, where she comes from, to find their lost father and brother.

The movie follows Jeanne’s journey in Lebanon, where she tries to understand what her mother’s life was like twenty years before, and why she has a hidden brother and a lost father.

The movie contains a lot of flashbacks that explore Nawal’s past during the Lebanese civil war, when Muslims and Christians were fighting.

I really loved the way that the story and its resolution are progressively distilled in the film. It both takes the viewer to the past, with Nawal, and explores the present, with Jeanne and Simon. Villeneuve succeeds in making us being closer and closer to each of the characters, to get attached to them, and when the twist arrives at the end of the film, there is a real emotional discharge that we have to face.

I know that many of the people who had read the play or seen it staged by Wajdi Mouawad were a bit disappointed by Denis Villeneuve’s film. It made me want to read the play as soon as possible (which I haven’t done yet) and, if I am lucky, to see Mouawad’s staging when it is rescheduled.

So, what did you think of this movie? Did some of you read the play before or after having seen the film?