Roger Frappier Movies
This Canadian film (in French) premiered in the 1999 Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema section. It tells the story of Laurie (Charlotte Laurier) and her love of downhill mountain bike racing. At the start of a big race, Laurie notices a gray hair on her head; her hesitation while noticing this causes her to lose the race by two seconds, forcing her retirement from racing. Angry, she moves to Montreal to stay with her brother, a physicist who is big on loose women and theories of relativity, and she gets a job as a bike messenger. At work, she meets a crusty old man named Lorenzo (Dino Tavarone), who was a champion cyclist himself before settling down and opening a bike shop. Though enemies and competitors at first, they slowly become friends and lovers, and teach each other that time (whether it's 50 years or two seconds) is a relative concept. ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlotte Laurier, Dino Tavarone, (more)
- 1986
Albane Guilhe stars in this French-Canadian film as Anne Trister, a brilliant but emotionally unstable painter/ sculptor. After the death of her father, Anne returns from Switzerland to her home town in Quebec. Setting up a studio, she becomes obsessed with her work, to the extent that she grows farther and farther from her Swiss lover. Anne enters into an affair with her childhood friend Louise Marleau, which also takes second place to her art. While hospitalized due to a fall from her scaffold, Anna discovers that her studio has been condemned and demolished--and with it her life's work. Somehow this disaster, coupled with her ongoing relationship with Marleau, enables Anne to find inner peace at last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albane Guilhe, Louise Marleau, (more)
- 1980
This Canadian tragedy centers around the controversial 1899 murder trial of Cordelia Viau and her retarded handyman, Samuel Parslow, with whom she had an affair. The case was so sensational because it represents the first time in which a conviction was based on purely circumstantial evidence. Despite the fact that both parties had strong alibis, and the evidence was contradictory, the jury still found them guilty of murdering her husband. The reason they were hung had more to do with the public's moral outrage at their well-publicized affair. People from all over the world attended their double hanging. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Portal, Gaston Lepage, (more)
- 1990
Ding and Dong (Serge Theriault and Claude Meunier) are two standup comedians whose slangy Quebecois humor has made them popular among those who speak that dialect of French. This slapstick comedy capitalizes on their wordplay to the maximum extent; consequently the film is recommended primarily to those with close ties to Quebec. In the story, Ding and Dong are a standup act who go to perform at a tiny club in a remote town. Their act receives a much less enthusiastic welcome than the fistfight which closes the bar down. Subsequent adventures are similarly disastrous, until they inherit a tidy sum and buy "Theatre de la Nouvelle Tragedie" where they begin producing (and starring in) classical plays which they warp in their own characteristic fashion. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Serge Theriault, Raymond Bouchard, (more)
A modern-day Passion Play becomes a reenactment of the life and death of Jesus Christ in more ways than one with this critically acclaimed drama from Quebec filmmaker Denys Arcand. Lothaire Bluteau stars as Daniel Coloumbe, an intense young actor in Montreal who is hired by church fathers to restage and update the city's annual Passion Play, which over the course of the past 40 years has begun to seem hidebound. Daniel hires a group of struggling young actors that become devoted to him and his creative vision as he devises an extremely avant-garde production that takes Christ's rebellious teachings literally. Revolving around set pieces reflecting passages from Christ's life rather than a traditional re-creation of events, Daniel's revisionist work also incorporates blasphemous ideas about his subject, questioning his true nature. Daniel's play is a critical smash and wows mesmerized audiences, but greatly disturbed church officials order the labor of love dismantled. Real life begins imitating biblical events as the actors become cast-outs and Daniel smashes up an audition in which the actress portraying his Mary Magdalene (Catherine Wilkening) is asked to disrobe by a prurient producer. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, (more)
- 1995
A 12-year-old girl finds herself stranded on a lonely Caribbean island with a 20-year old retarded man in this sensitively rendered Canadian drama from Quebec. Emile and Cedrine are first seen during their rescue in which both are nearly in a coma. Their story of how they got there and survived is told via flashback. The two were the only survivors of a plane crash and at first Cedrine is terrified of Emile, thinking he might lose control and rape her. Fortunately, Emile is gentle and the two become friends, playmates, and eventually lovers in scenes that exploit neither character. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2001
Following up on his directorial debut Clandestins -- about desperate refugees stowing away on a ship -- Denis Chouinard created this taut thriller about immigrants after they have arrived on Canada's shores. Ahmed Kasmi and his family fled Algeria and he is now only a week away from getting his Canadian citizenship. Ahmed's teenaged son Hafid, secretly a part of a group of militants, breaks into the immigration office and deletes databanks worth of information. Captured by security cameras, the act is broadcast throughout the country on the nightly news, just as Ahmed is practicing "O Canada" in his living room. Crushed by the stupid actions of his wayward son, he heads into the streets of Montreal in search of Hafid, where he discovers an entire underworld of radical activism and militancy that he never knew existed. He eventually hooks up with Huguette -- Hafid's girlfriend -- and the two search for him together. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zinedine Soualem, Catherine Trudeau, (more)
- 1997
In a style evocative of Fellini at his most surreal, this bizarre French Canadian fantasy follows the romance between a young filmmaker and a bearded lady from a local circus during the 1960s. The story begins in a contemporary theater where a projectionist describes, to movie director Rex Prince, the ghostly spirit that seems to be haunting his film. The story then races backward to the 1960s when a half-mad, idealistic Rex was busily making his first film, a Marxist tract depicting poverty in Montreal. Edouard Dore, a well-connected editor works with him and it is he who takes Rex to a carnival late one night to meet the performers in a freakshow. The first person Rex meets is Le Grand Zenon, a hulking one-eyed fellow with the amazing ability to use his eye to project movie images on a screen with neither a projector nor film. Later Rex meets the beautiful but facially hirsute Paula Paul de Nerval. For Rex it is almost love at first sight, so he is therefore upset when, only a few hours after their meeting, she takes off to join a Cajun circus in Louisiana . A few months later, Rex, still obsessed with Paula, races southward in an Edsel to become a human cannonball at the same circus as she. The story jumps back to the present to Rex's latest film "La Comtesse de Baton Rouge," a chronicle of his strange love affair with Paula. Up to this point, the story has been surreal and quite poetic, but as Rex's movie unspools, the film becomes a zany comedy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2002
A scientist living in Tokyo is sent to a small Canadian town to study the tides in this visually inventive feature from director Manon Briand. Suspecting that the cecassion of the tides may indicate an impending earthquake, Seismologist Alice (Pascale Bussieres) arrives in her hometown of Baie-Comeau, Quebec to commence her investigation. Soon confronted by numerous figures from her past, the unusual weather and inexplicable behavior of the citizens lead Alice to believe that something beyond her comprehension is occurring to her old hometown. With a mysterious waitress (Genevive Bujold), a lusting woman, a pack of nuns, a sleepwalking child and a widower pilot who grows ever closer to Alice all factoring into the strange goings on, it seems as if human emotions may have somehow played an integral part in the sudden climate shift. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pascale Bussières, Julie Gayet, (more)
- 2000
Gilles (Michel Cote) is a mild-mannered dentist until his wife of 20 years suddenly dumps him for another man. Dejected, depressed, and distraught, he turns to his psychiatrist, Docteur Bilodeau (Yves Jacques), who has his patients lay into a punching bag. For Gilles, the treatment proves to be too successful, and soon he's taking his treatment out on his clients. While cooling his heels in jail, he bonds with cellmate Sunsey (Patrick Huard), a hard-drinking, dope-smoking man's man. Soon, Gilles office has transformed into a neo-hippie drug den and party pad. Somewhere amid the THC haze, Gilles starts to date comely lass Sophie (Guylaine Tremblay) -- who in a Vertigo-like turn looks just like his soon-to-be ex-wife. Has he found the doppelganger of his life's love or should he lay off the hallucinogens? This film was huge hit in its native Quebec. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Cote, Patrick Huard, (more)
- 2004
The return of a long-lost father into the lives of his two grown sons sparks the flame of reconciliation in the sophomore feature from How My Mother Gave Birth to Me During Menopause director Sébastien Rose. Despite the fact that they were both products of the same union, brothers Paul (Paul Ahmarani) and Patrick (David La Haye) couldn't be more different. A self-made, type-A businessman who made a name for himself in the pharmaceutical industry, Patrick lives in luxury with his wife and child while penniless writer Paul battles a lingering case of writer's block while living with his girlfriend in the crowded, ramshackle family home. When father and famed writer François shows up on Paul's doorstep seeking a place to stay, he is hesitantly accepted by his bewildered son. An unplanned family reunion of sorts occurs when Patrick's long-suffering wife sends her husband packing and he too seeks shelter in the family home, and in the days that follow three men attempt to make peace with their tumultuous past and pave the way toward a brighter future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raymond Bouchard, Paul Ahmarani, (more)
- 1992
Pierre is in love with two women and has a stable relationship with both of them. His wife, all by herself, makes him feel whole. However, he has the identical feeling with his librarian mistress and cannot understand why this arrangement shouldn't be satisfactory for everyone concerned. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ron Lea, Pascale Bussières, (more)
- 2006
The ugly duckling son of a picture-perfect bourgeois family receives a much-needed dose of self-confidence when he is befriended by a beautiful and capricious stranger in director Stephane LaPointe's festering family drama. Thomas Dufresne (Marc Paquet) isn't like the rest of his family. The offspring of a highly successful father and a razor sharp mother whose keen intellect is widely known thanks to her winning performance on a popular quiz show, twenty-five year old Thomas is as clumsy as they come. When Thomas crosses paths with free-spirited waitress Audrey (Catherine De Lean), it seems as if he has finally found the muse who could truly help him live up to his vast potential. Subsequently praised by his architect teachers for his creative innovation, Thomas finally begins to savor the sweet flavor of success. But Audrey isn't everything she appears to be, and when Thomas finds out the truth behind their "chance encounter" the repercussions that follow may be enough to rend the tenuous seams that hold this family together once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gilbert Sicotte, Marc Paquet, (more)
- 1985
This fictionalized, routine account of the closing of a mining town leaves more questions than it is supposed to answer -- mainly because most viewers will not know the issues involved. Back before he became Canada's Prime Minister, Brian Mulrooney was in charge of an iron-ore company and voluntarily shut down the company town of Schefferville. He sent a population of 5,000 to go live elsewhere and returned the land to the Native Americans who were also living there at the time. The story of the town closing is sketched from the viewpoints of the local kids, serves as a backdrop for one divorce, and is played down by a geologist who is there to study the traces of the last glacial activity.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Gravel, Louise Laprade, (more)
- 1993
- R
Based upon a play by screenwriter Brad Fraser, Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Denys Arcand's dark-humored drama Love and Human Remains follows the lives of a group of young Canadians, with a particular focus on their romantic and sexual experiences. The central characters are two roommates, David and Candy. The cynical, witty David is a former television actor turned waiter, the lonely, dissatisfied Candy a book critic; the two were formerly lovers, before David proclaimed his homosexuality. Candy is also questioning her sexuality, having begun a lesbian affair after wondering if her failures with men indicates she might be happier with a woman; meanwhile, David is becoming acquainted with Kane, a handsome, young busboy of uncertain sexuality who idolizes the older David. The other members of the ensemble are also somehow connected to the roommates, through friendship or romance, including Benita, a young dominatrix and part-time psychic, and Bernie, a boastful but insecure young businessman. The couplings and shifting relationships of these characters are intercut with the rather more severe story of a serial murderer who has been terrorizing the city's women, allowing Arcand to place the film's melodramatic elements in an edgier context. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Gibson, Ruth Marshall, (more)
- 2000
Love, death, and fish all mingle in this offbeat comedy-drama from award-winning Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. Bibiane Champagne (Marie-Josee Croze) is the daughter of a well-known fashion designer who dabbles in modeling when she's not busy helping to run the family business with her brother Phillippe (Bobby Beshro). But Bibiane has not been especially happy in her work lately, owing in part to an unexpected pregnancy that led her to have an abortion. Bibiane tries drowning her sorrows in alcohol and drugs, and late one night, after several drinks too many, she hits a jaywalker while driving home. The pedestrian staggers away after the accident, and the next morning, Bibiane remembers what happened and is frightened at the prospect that she may have killed someone. When Bibiane reads a newspaper account the next day of a seafood delivery man who died in his kitchen after being struck by a hit-and-run driver, she's convinced she was responsible for the crime. Guiltily attending the man's funeral, Bibiane strikes up a conversation with his son, Evian (Jean-Nicholas Verreault), and soon the two have become romantically involved, with Bibiane unable to tell Evian her secret. Maelstrom was shown in competition at both the Montreal World Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival in 2000. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie-Josée Croze, Stephanie Morgenstern, (more)
- 1999
Quebec filmmaker Jean-Phillipe Duval debuted with this madcap comedy about a graduate student sucked into Montreal's criminal netherworld. Ph.D. candidate Gilles (Alexis Martin) literally runs into waitress Guylaine (Guylaine Tremblay) at the beach while he is reviewing his dissertation. The two immediately hit it off, and when he returns to his abode in Montreal he heads straight to the low-rent bar where she works. The lovebirds begin talking about the future, until Guylaine's gun-toting brother Bob (Gary Boudreault) staggers to their doorstep after getting worked over by the mob. Fearing for his life, he pleads with Gilles to deliver a message to Matroni, the big boss. On his way to hand off the note, the overly ethical Gilles has a moral crisis: the letter lists names of other soon-to-be-ex-hoods. His actions start a series of bizarre and unforeseen incidents. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alexis Martin, Guylaine Tremblay, (more)
