Deterritorialization and the Crisis of Recognition in Turn of the Millennium Québec Film¹

1. An abridged version of this article was presented at the American Council for Québec Studies conference held in Sarasota, Florida, Nov. 8–11, 2012.

Abstract

This essay examines the role of deterritorialization in protagonists’ identity crises in three turn of the millennium films from Québec: Louis Bélanger's Post Mortem (1999), Denis Villeneuve's Maelström (2000), and André Turpin's Un crabe dans la tête (2001). It considers these works’ and their filmmakers’ status as representative of a new generation of filmmakers in Québec. Rather than propose an explicitly territorialized type of film that some critics appeared to expect on their release, these films stage the story of an individual protagonist's alienation and crisis in meaning. In each film, this crisis involves a clear encounter with death, accompanied by some form of deterritorialization, and often explores the redemptive power of love. In spite of the ambivalent response of institutional critics, these films were highly successful at the Jutra and Genie awards ceremonies, demonstrating that their stories, their images and performances struck a chord with the contemporary film industry's stakeholders. The essay argues that while not superficially conforming to expectations for a deeply territorialized form of national cinema, these directors and the stories they tell are, indeed, reflective of twenty-first century Québec society. These films’ writer-directors and performers participate in the discourse of the post-national; secure in their québécité, they are free to embrace the multicultural, cosmopolitan world city, of which Montréal serves as a unique and dynamic exemplar.

Keywords:

• Quebec
• film
• deterritorialization
• Denis Villeneuve
• André Turpin
• Louis Bélanger

Notes

1. An abridged version of this article was presented at the American Council for Québec Studies conference held in Sarasota, Florida, Nov. 8–11, 2012.

2. Citations taken from the film's subtitles, which, unfortunately often miss significant nuances in the dialogue, as seen here and in the following note. Here, the French dialogue, “Je parle à personne; je veux pas de problèmes,” should translate as “I don't talk to anybody; I don't want any problems.”

3. In this case, the first half of this utterance, “Tu sais pas vivre, ’ostie. T'es pas plus jaseur que les cadavres,” was completely cut from the subtitles. The simple phrase, “You don't know how to live,” underscores a point made later in this essay concerning Ghislain's metaphorical death and reawakening resulting from his encounter with Linda.

4. Let us recall that Christopher Nolan's Memento, which was seen as totally cutting edge in its narrative approach, appeared in 2000, the same year as Maelström, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia—with which all three of these films have clear affinities—had only appeared the year before in 1999.

5. Interestingly, Louis Bélanger indicates in an interview that Post Mortem’s plot was actually inspired by a newspaper item in which a Romanian morgue-worker brought a dead woman back to life as Ghislain does for Linda (Baldassarre 2003, 16).

6. Both he and Bibiane in Maelström, and to a lesser extent Linda in Post Mortem, are repeatedly shown in the shower, grooming, looking at themselves or reflected in mirrors and glass, underscoring their superficiality, at the same time underscoring the water motif.

7. For extended discussions of hockey as a marker of place in Québec popular culture see my forthcoming book on the topic.