Reviews

I was first curious to see Tunisian director Nouri "Bouzid's Man of Ashes" after seeing his gorgeous short film "It is Sherherazade They're Killing" from the anthology film "The Gulf War, What Next?" (1991). "Sherherazade" (very subtly) explored the issue of the Arab world's treatment of women in the context of the Gulf War, and "Man of Ashes" is also about sexual politics, but in a very different way. "Man of Ashes" is a critical exploration into the male identity in Arab society. The film exposes many contradictions between how men are expected to behave, and how they actually feel inside.

The film concerns to men in their early twenties, Hachemi and Farfat, who live in the Tunisian city of Sfax. Hachemi, a carpenter is under a lot of stress because he is about to be married to a woman he is not in love with in an arranged marriage. Farfat is the victim of disparaging graffiti ("Farfat is not a man") painted on wall around their neighbourhood. Actually, we soon find out that it is Farfat himself who has painted the graffiti, and that both he and Hachemi were victims of a child molester when they were younger. Adding to their troubles, Hachemi's parents want to invite Ameur, the molester, to the wedding. Ameur is also a carpenter, and in-fact is the one who taught Hachemi everything he knows about carpentry.

From what I've read, "Man of Ashes' is on of the few films to deal with the issue of the Arab male identity in such a straightforward and critical manner. The film has a low-key, character driven structure that helps us as an audience grasp the full gravity of the situation. Were the film to have a faster pace, the seriousness of the subject matter would be trivialized. We come to understand, through the slow pacing, and detailed characterizations, that it is not just the molestation that has made Hachemi and Farfat so emotionally crippled, it is also the society that demands so much of them as men.

At the end, after making love to a woman and proving to himself that he is indeed a real man, Farfat kills Ameur, and then eludes the police by jumping in front of a moving train, which barely misses him, but blocks the path of his pursuers. The last shot of the film is Farfat jumping across the rooftops. This shot is in slow motion, making it appear that he is flying. This ending is one of the few problematic points in the film. Is seems that by showing Farfat jumping freely across the rooftops, the film is suggesting that he is now emotionally free. In other words is the film suggesting that he needed to make love, and the kill in order for him to free himself? Or is the film suggesting that Farfat only feels free, but he has still ultimately conformed to the stereotypes of the macho Arab male?

On the ending, I can't really decide. The tone is happy, but everything we have seen before suggests that the traditional Arab attitudes towards the male identity are flawed. In any case, "Man of Ashes" is an important work for the exploration into a part of Arab society we rarely see.

Samir Habchi's only feature (to date), "The Tornado", was praised upon its release as a powerful indictment of war. The story of a young Lebanese man living in Russia, who returns home during the civil war, the film uses a surreal, dream like structure to emphasize the pointlessness of war. This would at first seem to be an appropriate use of surrealism. Unfortunately, "The Tornado" is a jaw-droppingly awful film. This movie completes the almost impossible task of being overwhelmingly heavy-handed and completely vague at the same time. I realize that my comments may be dismissed by some who may believe that since I am not from the middle east, and have never been there, I therefore simply cannot understand the context in which the film was made. I assure you, I do understand the context, and I wanted to like "The Tornado", but it is simply a poorly made film.

The film concerns a young man named Akram, who after seeing on the news that there has been a car bombing in Beirut, returns to his home city from Moscow, and proceeds to get sucked into a "tornado" of violence. At first Akram is alienated by the bloodshed, but after he is beaten in the street, and his friend is shot for no reason, he takes his revenge on the killer, and is then sought out by the killer's friends. After a series of violent confrontations, in which Akram is repeatedly killed only to wake up and discover he has been dreaming, he runs to the top of a mountain and shoots the sky, at which point the clouds open up, and rain pours down. The end.

Normally, I like a surreal structure, but in the case of this film, it is obviously only used to (poorly) mask Habchi's inability to construct compelling characters. We never understand why Akram would go back after this particular bombing when there must have been hundreds before it, and since we don't understand him, we don't feel anything for him. Some might say then that the character is meant to serve as a metaphor for the Lebanese people and not represent an individual. This only makes me think of Tewfik Saleh's brilliant Syrian film "Al-Makhdu'un (1972). In that film, Saleh used three men to represent the different stages of man's life, and yet, the metaphor never became over-bearing for he infused each character with enough depth that they became believable characters in their own right, as well as powerful symbols of the Arab people. In this film, Akram is simply an empty shell.

Another heavy-handed aspect of the film is the way in which senseless violent acts are constantly being committed. I realize that this is probably what it was really like during the civil war in Lebanon. Innocent people died every day. However, the film makes its point and then continues to make the same point over and over again. There will be a violent scene, some peace, a violent scene, some peace, and so on, and so on. This is undoubtedly a reference to the fact that Lebanon had something like 1000 cease-fires during the civil war, but the film does not back it up with a strong narrative. Although some might argue that this is the point, since in the confusion of war, all seems to lose meaning, why then, does Habchi repeatedly use heavy handed, Hollywood style techniques like slow motion, dramatic, pounding music during all the violent sequences, and a car chase climax? If this is an anti-war film, it seems odd to me that Habchi would use these techniques, since they only serve to make the violence more attractive.

The most frustrating aspect of "The Tornado" is that despite its poor quality, it was an ambitious, heartfelt undertaking. The film was shot on location, during the war, under dangerous conditions. Habchi obviously had something he felt was important to express. Unfortunately, he lacked the talent to express it.

Although Ali Ozgenturk's film is called "The Horse", we actually see very little of said animal. In the film we follow a father named Hüseyin and his son Ferhat as they move from their poverty stricken town in the Turkish countryside to Istanbul. Hüseyin is desperate to find enough money so he can send his son to school, and Ferhat hopes the money can be used to buy a horse. In Istanbul, Hüseyin buys a vegetable cart and the two attempt to sell vegetables on the street. Because Hüseyin doesn't have a licence to sell vegetables, the two are constantly on the look out for cops, and eventually Hüseyin has a run in with the law and loses his cart, although he himself escapes. Hüseyin tries various other methods to get money but they all prove fruitless. Finally, he steals a cart and takes it to the market place. All he has to sell is a single flower, but before he call sell it he his attacked and accidentally killed by the carts owner. Ferhat is sent home.

After watching "The Horse", anyone who has seen Vittorio De Sica's "The Bicycle Thief" (1947) will notice the similarities between the two. In both films we have a poverty stricken father and son spending a soul-crushing week in the big city. The father's source of income (bike/cart) is taken away. The father ends up stealing another one, and is caught. In both films, the stress of the situation causes the father to beat the son over a minor argument. Afterwards, both fathers feel tremendous guilt. I have no proof that Ozgenturk saw "The Bicycle Thief", but "The Horse" could almost be considered a re-make of De Sica's film. Nevertheless, "The Horse" is a strong, important work in it's own right, that stands on its own.

Structurally, "The Horse" is quite striking. The first hour is presented in a realistic tone, and as the film begins (with a depiction of Hüseyin's fellow villagers performing a play), we think we might be about to watch a documentary. However, at the halfway mark, Hüseyin has a dream in which he sees himself lying in a coffin, and the film starts to take a more surreal tone. One could see how this shift in tones might jeopardize the films effectiveness, but in The Horse, it works, as we how the tone reflects Hüseyin's increasingly desperate situation. The dream sequences themselves are brief and never heavy handed. They are shot with the same realistic tone as the rest of the film, which only increases their haunting quality, as we see Hüseyin's thoughts (Ferhat taking on the persona of various men who have publicly humiliated Hüseyin) and dreams (the coffin) shot in a matter-of-fact style.

Writing about films can be frustrating when not much is known about the contexts surrounding a particular movie. On the back of the video box for "The Horse", it is written that Ozgenturk was thrown in prison for making the film. I can understand why the government would hate this film. It does after all harshly criticize, among other things, police brutality, the inefficiency of the state run school system, and the inability of the government to solve its poverty problem. I also don't doubt that Ozgenturk was jailed after the movie was made. I am only sceptical that the only reason the government gave for jailing Ozgenturk was that they did not like his film. I would love to know more about what happened to Ozgenturk after this film (I know he made a few more). I just don't know where to look.

Abbas Kiarostami's first feature, "The Traveler", may seem at first to be a simplistic film compared to his later, more internationally known works. In the film, Qassem, a ten-year old boy, lives in a small town. He wants desperately to go to Tehran to watch an important soccer match. He ends up lying, cheating and stealing (including a scheme where he charges money to take peoples photos... with no film in the camera) to pay his way to Tehran. He even betrays his best friend. It all seems to pay off when he is able to make it to Tehran. Unfortunately, a few hours before the match he takes a nap in the park. After a horrifying nightmare where all the people he cheated tie his up, hang him upside-down and beat his feet, he wakes up and runs to the soccer stadium. The last shot of the film is an aerial shot of a lone Qassem walking onto an empty soccer field. He missed the game.

While the film does seem to have a finger wagging "this is what happens to bad little boys" feel to it, it manages to transcend its educational film origins (being produced by the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children an Young Adults), and reveals itself to be on par with the celebrated "child-on-a-quest" films that permeate today's Iranian cinema. Despite Qassem's shady behavior, we do feel a certain sympathy for him. We don't support what he does, but Kiarostami does supply us with enough slices of Qassem's troubled home life, that we gain a certain understanding of his desire to get to Tehran. This, to me a least, suggests that Kiarostami was consciously subverting to original intention of the film, which I'm assuming was produced by the CIDCYA in order be shown to children to keep them in line.

As I said before, Kiarostami is not encouraging Qassem's behavior, and the dream sequence suggests that Qassem himself realizes his mistakes. At seventy-five minutes the film is incredibly easy to watch and would be a perfect introduction for young audiences to foreign cinema. Afterwards they could discuss the film's multi-leveled qualities and perhaps realize there is more to movies than "Pokemon".

Bahram Beizai's "The Stranger and the Fog" (1975) is quite simply, a hypnotic experience. Despite the film's two-hour plus running time, the story is incredibly simple. A man, lying unconscious in a small boat, washes up on the shore of a peaceful seaside village. He is wounded, and all he remembers is that his name is Ayat (Farsi for "the sign"). Despite their initial distrust of Ayat, the people eventually accept him (after a series of grueling physical tests) and he falls in love with and marries a young widowed mother named Rana. Eventually, however, ominous men come to take Ayat away, and in a stunning fifteen-minute sequence, the townspeople help Ayat fight and kill the intruders. Fearing that more men will return and harm his newfound friends, Ayat leaves the village in that same boat he arrived in. We never find out who the men were or why they were chasing Ayat.

It may seem impossible to keep a film as long as "The Stranger and the Fog" interesting enough to watch with such a simple plot, but Beizai creates such a gripping and creepy atmosphere, that the film seems to go by very quickly. Part of this atmosphere is created by the gorgeous wide-screen photography (which is so good, that the film looks beautiful even on the cropped VHS copy that I own), but the two aspects that I want to discuss in this review are first, the influence of the Iranian theatrical tradition known as Taziyeh, and second, the influence of other countries' cinematic and cultural traditions. These two aspects come together in Stranger, to create a unique viewing experience.

I am by no means an expert on Iranian culture or history, so I won't go into too much detail about Taziyeh. But even a limited knowledge of Taziyeh can help one better appreciate "Stranger". Taziyeh is a form of passion play dating back thousands of years, while a detailed history and discussion of the specific reasons behind Taziyeh's aesthetic is impossible here, it should be noted that Taziyeh has deep Islamic religious roots, but is very specific to Iran. The Taziyeh stage is a circle, and the audience surrounds the stage. The acting is intentionally unrealistic, sometimes much too subdued, sometimes intentionally overwrought. The actors frequently address the audience directly, so that they are constantly reminded that they are watching a play. In Taziyeh it is the spectacle that is most important; the text comes second.

In many ways, Taziyeh is a foreshadowing of the self-reflexive tendencies throughout Iranian film history, but that is the topic for another essay. In "Stranger", we see the influence of Taziyeh immediately. The acting is highly stylized, with the actors very often facing the camera while talking. Although they are addressing other characters within the diagetic world, we as an audience become aware of the artifice. A circular motif is used throughout the film as well, most noticeably in the scene of Ayat's initiation into the village community, and in the final scene, where the villagers encircle Rana as she watches Ayat sail off into the distance.

Although the film uses as its basis a form of theater very specific to Iran, the film actually has a universal feel. The way in which Beizai achieves this is through his use of setting and costumes. Although the characters in the film speak Farsi, the houses in the village look Russian, and the clothes of many of the men, including the intruders, with their flat hats and broad shoulders are unmistakably Japanese in their origins. One unfamiliar with Iranian culture might ask what part of Iran the story is set in, but in fact Beizai has created a fictional world, in which various cultures mesh together. Beizai quotes Russia and Japan in formal ways as well. The cinematography, with its images of thick fog rolling through ominous, dead landscapes, is very reminiscent of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, and in the climactic battle scene, there is a sequence of shots that is an unmistakable direct homage to Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" (1954). Those are but two brief examples.

Ultimately, there is much more to "The Stranger and the Fog" than I have discussed here. I have left out a discussion of the films narrative themes completely for it would take another seven hundred words to even begin to do them justice. As it stands "The Stranger and the Fog" is a fascinating, multi-leveled work that can be appreciated by both fans of unusual, haunting film, and those interested in Iranian artistic traditions.

Turkey's Yilmaz Guney is one of the world's most fascinating filmmakers. That is not to say his films are perfect, but given the context in which they were created, (this is a man who, after spending much of his adult life in prison, eventually escaped only to die of cancer soon after, and yet still completed twenty-four features as a director, and countless others as an actor) they are examples of great art being made under the most pressing circumstances. I myself have seen precious little of Guney's work, but what I have seen (six "serious" films, and two escapist B-budget action flicks) has impressed me to no end.

"Arkadas" is not my favorite Guney movie, that would still have to be "The Wall" (1983), but it is nonetheless an intelligent, important work, that is fully deserving of analysis. Unfortunately, "Arkadas" is not available here, and the only copy I could find was not subtitled. This proved to be a blessing in disguise, as it helped me further concentrate on and appreciate the formal aspects of the film. Later, I was given a detailed explanation of many of the dialogue scenes, and the more subtle aspects of the film were revealed to me, letting me enjoy the film a second time around in a whole new way.

In "Arkadas", Guney plays Azem, a man with a mysterious past who one day arrives at the posh Istanbul home of an old friend, Djemil. Azem and Djemil were friends from childhood, who both became engineers. But while Azem used his knowledge to help small communities become more productive, Djemil has become corrupt and lives a decadent life in the city. Azem's arrival stirs up latent tensions in Djemil's family, and the lives of many people in Djemil's community are also affected, including a young laborer from a poor background who works odd jobs in the community, and rebels against his surroundings by breaking windows and slashing car tires. After Azem brings Djemil back to their home village, they return the city, where they finally say goodbye to each other. As Azem leaves Djemil's house we hear what sounds like a gunshot. Although many writers have stated that Djemil commits suicide at the end, we in-fact do not see this, and it is left ambiguous if even Azem hears any noise, as his immediate action after the noise is to crack a large smile and greet his new friend, the young laborer.

Upon first viewing the film, although strikingly made and undeniably interesting, seems nonetheless didactic and simplistic. Guney seems to portray himself as the representative of correct thinking, while the capitalist friend is clearly in the wrong. However, when exploring the film closer, we see that the character of Azem is also flawed. Guney portrays Azem as self-righteous. In other words, Guney knows that Azem sees himself as infallible. Azem in-fact fails to take into account the situation in which Djemil has found himself. Azem doesn't realize that Djemil can't change his situation overnight, that it took him years to build his life, and its undoing would leave Djemil with nothing to live for.

So, if the film is not as simplistic as it first seems, that still leaves the matter of its didactic tone. Yes, the film is didactic, but that didacticism comes out of an urgency to seriously and intelligently explore the issues that Guney felt were important for a Turkish audience to relate to. Although many films had been made in Turkey that went against the B-budget action formula that most North-Americans think of when they think (if at all) of Turkish cinema, no other film up to that time were as politically motivated as "Arkadas", and this must be taken into account.

As I have stated before, I saw the film without subtitles, so the formal aspects of the film are what struck me first, and "Arkadas" is a formally brilliant work. While the narrative is fairly simple (though like I said, not simplistic) and straight forward, Guney breaks up the narrative with impressionistic, and sometimes almost surreal sequences that give the film a distinctive tone. The film begins with a montage of bourgeoisie citizens at play. The film is peppered with these montages that work in almost the way as Yasujro Ozu's "pillow shots" do: they provide a break in the action to let the viewer contemplate what he/she has seen.

Later, a similar montage of poor children in a small village is rudely broken up by freeze frames that suddenly go from color to black & white. We then see that these are points of view from the cameras of tourists who are using the children as backdrops for their photos, but clearly have no understanding for their situation. Another surreal sequence involves a scene where citizens of the bourgeois community seemingly don't notice a groups of tanks as they rumble past their houses. The action in the film is interrupted as we, un-like the people in the film watch the tanks. The scene ends and the people go on as if nothing happened. Guney seems to be commenting on the way in which the Turkish people have let themselves be overpowered by dictatorial forces, instead of revolting against the oppressive state.

Of course, as is well known, Guney was jailed shortly after completion of this film. Although the charge was murder, he was in fact a political prisoner, since it was quite clear that he was innocent. It would be nine years before he would personally direct another film again, "The Wall", after years of directing "by proxy" from prison. Although those films and "The Wall" show a continuation of his maturing themes, and are great works in their own right, it still makes one sad to think that the Turkish government stalled the career one of their most gifted filmmakers, and prevented the world from having more of his films to enjoy and discuss.

I had been looking forward to seeing a film by Mrinal Sen for some time. As one of the "big three" film makers of the Indian art-cinema world (Ray and Ghatak being the others of course), Sen was the only director whose films I had not seen. "Genesis", while not one of Sen's better known works, is nonetheless an extremely powerful film. The film concerns two men, a weaver and a farmer, who live an isolated existence in an abandoned village in the middle of the dessert. Their peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious woman, who at first brings them joy and companionship. Soon however the two friends fight over her affections and become enemies.

However, if a description of the plot makes the film sound like yet another sexist movie about a "femme fatale" ruining two good men, don't be fooled. The woman in this tale clearly tries to stop the two men from fighting, but it is their own ingrained macho instincts that keep them from truly benefiting from this woman's presence. The addition of a third male character, a merchant, helps reinforce this view. The merchant clearly resents the presence of the woman as she sees her as a threat to his control over the two men. He feels that they will no longer be dependent on him if she is around so he turns them against each other. In the end he takes over their land and industrializes it.

The final scene is particularly striking because it is the only time we explicitly see modern machinery. Up until then we seemed to be in some strange "lost" time. We had some clues to modernization (the occasional sound of airplanes, one shot of some telephone wires), but because they were both associated with they sky, they passed over the heads of the characters but never made contact with them. They were like a warning of things to come. With the final shot of a bulldozer pushing its way towards us, we are able to see that if only the men had listened to the woman, and not followed their baser instincts, they might not have lost their land. It is ironic that while modernization is usually associated with progress, it is because these men do not reevaluate what is important in their lives that they lose their way of life.

"Devi" is one of Satyajit Ray's most compact films. At 93 minutes, it is his shortest feature, and the story is one of his simplest to describe. In the 1830's young woman, Doya, lives in a mansion with her father and extended family. Her husband works far away, but plans to have Doya move with him soon. On day Doya's father drops to her feet and proclaims that she is the reincarnation of the Goddess Kali. At first Doya is skeptical, but when a sick boy seems to be cured in her presence, she too comes to believe that she is the Goddess. Despite her husbands attempt to take her away from the house, she stays. When she is not able to cure a second sick boy, her nephew, she cannot handle the pressure, and despite her husband's pleas, runs away into the mist.

Yet despite the seeming simplicity of the story line, "Devi" is a complex work. Aesthetically, Ray is able to use the space in an incredibly evocative manner. In the beginning of the film the interiors of the mansion are shot in a relatively open manner, and there seems to be a lot of space to move around. As the film progresses, the shots get tighter and there seems to be less space. This contrasts with all the exterior sequences, which are shot using a greater degree of long shots. Yet, this is not a simplistic visual statement by Ray that suggests that the indoor are confining while the outdoors represents freedom. In fact the outdoors too is confining, for along with the open space come oppressive mists and clouds, as well as the tendency to have the characters draped in shadow. It's as if Ray is saying there is nowhere for these characters to go, no escape from their fate.

At the end of the film, when Doya runs away, she is enshrouded in mist, leaving it ambiguous as to what will happen to her, and certainly suggesting that she has not found escape. Although in most plot summaries it is stated that Doya dies in the end, that did not seem to be case with the print that I saw. Perhaps the other writers were thinking of the original story. In any case, by having Doya run away into the mists, Ray makes a more powerful statement than if he were to have her simply die. By dying, we know that although this was the tragic result of her father pressuring her into believing she was the Goddess, she has found some release. By having Doya running away into the mist, Ray creates a much more chilling conclusion, for we know that Doya might never be able to undo the damage that has been done.

(This is the second half of my essay. Please read the first part before this if you haven't done so already)

It seems the age of the characters affects their relationship with religion. Take the oldest son for example. He is the only one of the children seen attending Church. However, the connection is given further weight by the son's work. All three, the mother, the father, and the Church going son are seen at work. Each workplace is startlingly similar. Empty halls with sunlight shining through at one end are a trademark of each location. All three characters walk trough the hallways in the same fashion, looking in each doorway, closing the doors, and making sure they are locked. For the eldest son, it is this unconscious similarity with his parents that represents his ties to the past. In an early, documentary like scene, we see a series of brief interviews with very young orphans who live in the orphanage where the mother works. They are asked if they remember their parents, but none of the children are able to recall them. Leduc suggests that with each new generation we become less and less dependent on history. However, the ghosts of the past are ever present.

Formally, this connection with the past is represented in many ways. Right after the introduction, we are shown a two-minute montage sequence that serves as almost a thematic trailer for the film. Leduc presents many quick glimpses of Montreal life. We see old men on a park bench, people skating, people swimming. We see every season represented. We see crowded streets and buildings. What we notice however is that Leduc inter-cuts filmic images from both the Montreal of 1970 and the Montreal of the early half of the twentieth century. An image of a man in a park from 1970 will be followed by skaters from what looks like the 1910's. Immediately after the skaters, we see swimmers from 1970, but then we get a horse and carriage from the 1930's. It's quite clear what Leduc's point is with this opening sequence.

The Quebec of bygone years is still very much a part of today's Quebec. As if to emphasize the point, on the soundtrack we hear contemporary 70's music, so that even the images from the 10's, 20's, and 30's are accompanied by wah-wah guitar. Later in the film, this funky Seventies music pops up again to connect us with the past. Over a long tracking shot of ancient alumni photos on the walls of the university, we hear catchy music. It's as if Leduc is saying that the people in these photos are still alive, but in ways we cannot see.

The theme of melancholy and loss in "On est loin du soleil" is as important as the theme of Quebec's connection to the past. The ghosts of the past are still very much an important part of Quebec. However, the melancholy comes not from a loss of the past since, A: the past is still an important part of the lives of the characters, and B: the fact that the authority of the Church has declined gives Quebec the chance to catch up with the rest of Canada. No, the sense of melancholy comes from a loss of a discernable future. For the first time in several years, Quebec in 1970 was at a point where it did not know what was to happen next. This of course, was in many ways a good thing, but there was still that overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Even before the death of the daughter at the end of the film, each member of the family behaves in a somber manner, as if they had already lost something. The death of the daughter actually unites the family for at least a brief moment. Although, they have lost an important part of their lives, they must still go on, there is still hope, the film seems to be saying.

Leduc further expresses the somber theme of melancholy through the use of long takes. This helps slow the film down to an almost meditative pace. A seventy-nine-minute film then seems much longer, and we feel much more affected by what we see. The long takes also help establish a more realistic sense of what the characters go through every day. That could be a sense of boredom, as when the youngest brother rides the bus to the employment agency in an unbroken two-minute take. The long takes can also suggest the importance of certain events as well, such as the scene where the oldest son prays in church. The shot is over three minutes in duration, and the lack of camera movement gives the scene a stoic quality.

"On est loin du soleil" is a film that demands repeated viewing. It is a complex film that expresses its themes in very subtle, but strong ways. It is hoped that this essay can shed some light on this film that has been so ignored for many years by the very province it so accurately portrays the soul of. Of course, Leduc was right. With each new generation we do lose a bit of our past. But it is films like "On est loin du soleil" that will help us make sure we never forget it.

I have a lot to say about this film so I have divided my entry into two parts.

In my entry on Jacques Leduc's 1973 film "Tendresse Ordinaire", I speak of the minimalist structure of the film. Probably one of the main reasons for this structure is to emphasize the sense of melancholy and loss the characters are suffering from. Leduc's earlier feature, "On est loin du soleil" also uses minimalism to express a sense of deep loss and melancholy, but at the same time is different in many ways from the later Leduc film. Formally, "On est loin du soleil" is much more complex, with more evident use of montage and broadening the focus from two characters to five. However, in some ways it is even more stripped down. There is less dialogue, and even less of a story. It was these aspects of "On est loin du soleil" that first made me interested in exploring the film further. This essay will discuss many aspects of this unique and under-seen Quebec film, from its formal construction, to its thematic concerns, to its history.

The film has a deceptively simple "story". One by one we are introduced to each main character by being shown one scene from each of their respective lives. The first person we are introduced to is an elderly woman who seems to work as some kind of caretaker at an orphanage. We then see an eighteen-year-old man as he travels by foot through the city. He finally reaches his destination, which turns out to be an employment agency. He is interviewed and leaves. The next character is slightly older, and works in a factory. After that is yet another man, probably in his thirties, roaming the empty halls of a university, locking up the classrooms. We then meet an elderly man, also roaming empty hallways. He is also a security guard, but works in an office building.

Throughout the film, between meeting each new character, we see glimpses of a young woman doing housework and packing her clothes into a suitcase. We are finally given a proper introduction at the end. She turns out to be the center point of the film. In a documentary style sequence, she faces the camera and reveals that she has been diagnosed with cancer. She has only a few weeks to live, and the doctors have decided that she should spend her remaining time in the hospital. The next scene takes place in the hospital where a doctor pronounces the woman dead. After this everything comes together. At the young woman's funeral, we see the five characters we had been introduced to before. We now realize that the elderly man and woman were the parents, the men were the sons, and the young woman was the only daughter of a family. In the final scene, the family gathers together around the kitchen table, and we see that they are unable to communicate with one another.

"On est loin du soleil" began as a documentary on Brother Andre, a Montreal priest who was born in the 1840's and died in the 1930's. Somewhere along the way however, it became a film that had little to do with Brother Andre... on the surface at least. In fact, upon closer inspection, it becomes quite evident that each character represents a different aspect of Brother Andre's life. In a three-minute introduction, a voice speaking over a black screen tells us of Brother Andre's life. We learn all the major information about the Brother. After the introduction we see scenes of each major character in their daily lives. One character, the eighteen-year-old, applies for work as cheap labor, just as Brother Andre did in his teens. Another, the daughter, is terminally ill and dies of cancer, like Brother Andre did, although he died at a much later age. The entire family leads separate lives, much like Brother Andre's family did. The mother works in an orphanage, and Brother Andre was orphaned at the age of twelve.

One critic, writing in "Sequences" magazine in 1973, criticized "On est loin du soleil" for paralleling the characters lives with Brother Andre. The critic stated that Leduc's use of parallels was unfortunate because it robbed the characters of their individuality, and kept them from being real people. He then implied that "Tendresse Ordinaire" was automatically a better film because it was more of a character study than an exploration of broader themes. In fact it is pointless to argue which film is better, for they are both individual films with different ways of exploring their topics. The use of parallels in "On est loin du soleil" helps to illustrate one of the key themes of the film: the strong connection Quebec's present has with its past.

Although every society is affected by its past, Quebec had been affected even more. The Church was for many years so powerful that it held back the province's progress in relation to the rest of Canada. In 1970, Quebec was behind the rest of the country in many ways and was only beginning to catch up. We see that some of the characters are still very religious, but some, especially the teen-age son, seem totally at odds with religion. And yet, it is this very clash with religion that is a testament to religion's strength. Because the youth is so at odds with religion, because his clash with religion affects his relationship with his parents, religion, or the past, becomes an important factor in his life.