Roger Frappier Movies

In this Canadian psychological drama a repressed young man struggles with his phobia of sex. It began when he was a sensitive 11-year old awakened in the night by the sound of his parents making love. Not understanding the nature of the groans, he peeks in and is horrified by the sight. Things get worse the next day when he and his mother discover that daddy died in his sleep that night. The boy, confused by it all deduces that it was the sex-act that killed his father and so refuses to mature so he will never have to die. This goes on several years and for some reason his mother doesn't seem to mind. Things seem okay until his mom's new boy friend moves in. The teen and the lover constantly fight. Late at night, the boy begins spying on his mother and the man and in so doing comes to realize that sex is not as deadly as it seemed. Once this light dawns, the boy is able to grow up and become normal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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

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

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

This French Canadian film details the aftereffects of a daring robbery. Veteran criminal Theo (Jacques Godin) and his novice gang - including his son, played by Eric Brisebois -- very nearly pull off the theft without a hitch, but the son panics and shoots two of the guards. The third guard (Robert Gravel) hides in the back of the armored car, locking himself in so that the criminals can't get either him or the loot. The efforts by Theo to extricate the guard from his stronghold end a shootout that proves fatal for everyone involved. Blind Trust was inspired by James Hadley Chase's novel The World in My Pocket previously filmed in 1962 and 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A rousing "he said/she said" endeavor, The Decline of the American Empire begins by separating the boys from the girls. Preparing a gourmet dinner, four male intellectuals begin trading stories of their sexual experiences. At the same time, four well-read women, all working out in a gym, exchange their own tales from the love front. The film is set in the lofty circles of academia, a world well known to Canadian director Denys Arcand. The anecdotes related herein are based on actual events in the lives of Arcand's professorial friends. There's nothing bookish, however, about the subject matter of the stories themselves, which ranges from mild philandering to S & M. The Decline of the American Empire was the winner of eight Canadian Genie awards (that's the above-the-border equivalent of the Oscar), including Best Picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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