Saturday, January 9, 2010

OCTOBRE (1994)


OCTOBER is the story of four men belonging to the FLQ (Liberation Front of Quebec) that kidnapped a government official and held him hostage till the government met their demands. The government did not. The man was killed.

On the surface, this film stinks of flat out pro-separatist propaganda. It's public knowledge that the director/screenwriter was a separatist and he was good friends with one of the men that participated in the murder. If you forget all the heavy handed “Ra-Ra-Go-Quebec” on display there's still a worthwhile film about what drives men to kill. The film is a slow march through the kidnapping and eventual murder of the political figure that sticks strictly within the time confinements of the event forces all the actors to play off what's happening RIGHT NOW: No flashbacks, no back story, only the pressing concerns of what to do. Performances are fine across the board, the direction is there to present the events and nothing more and the only sore-point was an overbearingly dramatic score. It's a film that tightens it's screws very slowly, but when it locks in place the audience is completely caught in witnessing the horrifying insatiable.


NOTE: The director went on to make the ULTRA POPULAR and ULTRA DETESTED (By me) retard comedies ELVIS GRATON II and 3.


A CHERRY TALE (Short that played before the feature)


When I heard the short was directed by THE GREATEST CANADINA FILMMAKER OF A LLLLLLLLLL TIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMME - Claude Jutra - I readied myself for twelve pretentious minutes of dullness. Instead, I got a hilarious story of a man's attempt to woo a chair. It was a blast of cartoonish slapstick and clever stop motion trickery that brought quite a lot of life to an inanimate object.



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