SIFF 1: Continental, A Film Without Guns
Continental, A Film Without Guns
(French title: Continental, un film sans fusil)
dir Stéphane LaFleur
My first film for this year’s SIFF hails from Canada, is about alienation, and… how apropos… I went to it all alone. The film starts off with a man who wanders into the woods, and from there, his disappearance loosely intertwines the lives of the four main characters: the man’s wife, an insurance salesman, a second-hand shop owner, and a hotel desk clerk. Oh, I suppose I should say that there are 5 main characters, because loneliness plays such a large role, it’s difficult to brush it off as just an emotion; instead, it becomes the antagonist.
The characters desperately try to make personal connections to dissipate the loneliness whether it is directly with other people or through themselves (the hotel clerk, played charmingly by Fanny Mallette, leaves messages on her own answering machine to have a voice to come home to). Some of the intertwining is more like a casual bump, while others revolve around each other… much like rubber duckies in a bathtub drifting and rotating against each other… but like um.. sad rubber duckies.
The film is, at times, painful to watch as the awkward moments of the characters struck embarrassment for them within me. Ironically enough, the drawn out silences in the film not only amplified the discomfort for the characters, but also my growling stomach. I tensely waited for someone to speak, for the underscore to divert attention, but to no avail… the guy seated to my left tried unsuccessfully to hold in his laugh.
So my advice, if you want to truly EXPERIENCE the film, go running, and then have half a bowl of oatmeal an hour before the showing.
(French title: Continental, un film sans fusil)
dir Stéphane LaFleur
My first film for this year’s SIFF hails from Canada, is about alienation, and… how apropos… I went to it all alone. The film starts off with a man who wanders into the woods, and from there, his disappearance loosely intertwines the lives of the four main characters: the man’s wife, an insurance salesman, a second-hand shop owner, and a hotel desk clerk. Oh, I suppose I should say that there are 5 main characters, because loneliness plays such a large role, it’s difficult to brush it off as just an emotion; instead, it becomes the antagonist.
The characters desperately try to make personal connections to dissipate the loneliness whether it is directly with other people or through themselves (the hotel clerk, played charmingly by Fanny Mallette, leaves messages on her own answering machine to have a voice to come home to). Some of the intertwining is more like a casual bump, while others revolve around each other… much like rubber duckies in a bathtub drifting and rotating against each other… but like um.. sad rubber duckies.
The film is, at times, painful to watch as the awkward moments of the characters struck embarrassment for them within me. Ironically enough, the drawn out silences in the film not only amplified the discomfort for the characters, but also my growling stomach. I tensely waited for someone to speak, for the underscore to divert attention, but to no avail… the guy seated to my left tried unsuccessfully to hold in his laugh.
So my advice, if you want to truly EXPERIENCE the film, go running, and then have half a bowl of oatmeal an hour before the showing.