Nicely anticipates Villeneuve's 2010 masterpiece, Incendies, another story of forgiveness in a cruel, cold world.
Polytechnique
Ut tensio sic vis
2009 · 1h 17m · Not Rated
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Directed by
Denis Villeneuve
Overview
A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.
Director and cast
- Denis Villeneuve Director
- Maxim Gaudette as The Assassin
- Sébastien Huberdeau as Jean-François
- Karine Vanasse as Valérie
- Evelyne Brochu as Stéphanie
- Martin Watier as Jean-François (voice)
- Johanne-Marie Tremblay as Jean-François' Mother
- Natalie Hamel-Roy as Jean-François' Mother (voice) (as Nathalie Hamel-Roy)
- Pierre-Yves Cardinal as Éric
- Pierre Leblanc as Mr. Martineau
- Francesca Barcenas Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
The virtue - and also the limitation - of this movie is that it confronts senselessness and insists on remaining calm and sane.
Polytechnique smartly exposes the spectrum of misogyny without overplaying the connection between the two incidents. Which makes the concluding flash-forward scene all the more disappointing.
The tragic art of Polytechnique isn't what it shows or reveals but rather the contemplation it inspires. There are moments in life when nothing makes sense and sadness descends; this is one of them.
Lensed in black-and-white, the 77-minute film is plenty arty and only arguably constructive in its tasteful fictionalization of a violent tragedy.
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