His Take/Her Take: Polytechnique

Worth the price of admission, or a waste of time? Brian McKechnie and Suzanne Ellis offer you their take on the latest movies hitting screens. Read their reviews every Friday, exclusively on CityNews.ca.

Let Brian and Suzanne know what you think of His Take/Her Take via email at brian.mckechnie@citynews.ca or suzanne.ellis@citynews.ca .

POLYTECHNIQUE

Rated 14A
Cast: Karine Vanasse, Maxim Gaudette, Sébastien Huberdeau
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Official Site IMDb

Based on the true events that occurred at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique on December 6, 1989 (known as the “Montreal Massacre”) where a male student shot and killed fourteen women before turning the gun on himself. The film is a dramatization told through the eyes of one of the female students who survived.

Brian’s Take

**** out of 5 stars

When production of Polytechnique began the controversy around it immediately overshadowed what the filmmakers were trying to do with the story. People were up in arms shouting “Why?”. Why make a movie based on one of the most devastating events in Canadian history? The final product speaks volumes as to “Why?”. This is not a Hollywood film glorifying violence. It’s very evident that the filmmakers did not take this on for profit but to educate. The film sticks to the facts of what we know from the people who were there and the news clips we’ve seen. The writing, acting, directing is all very toned down and raw. The film was even shot in black and white so that the colour of the blood is not emphasized.

You can clearly see that telling this story was important to actress and producer Karine Vanasse (who plays Valérie – one of the students who survived). She’s mesmerizing in her role and not only pays tribute to the victims but is also a strong female who celebrates and cherishes her life. Critiquing Maxim Gaudette’s portrayal of the “Killer” (all the names have been changed in the film and they don’t bother naming him) is tough. You can’t say he’s amazing in the part because of who he is playing. Imagining an actor brave enough to take that on deserves to be praised though and he plays it with such coldness that it sent chills through me every time he was on screen. The rest of the cast are all believable in their respective roles and do a great job in telling the story. It should also be noted that they filmed the movie twice – once in French and once in English in order to be accessible to a wider audience.

After the screening of Polytechnique I went back to the office and researched every aspect of it. I was only eleven when Marc Lepine went on his rampage and although I remember seeing reports on the news and hearing my family discussing it I was too young to understand the extent of what happened. Who was Marc Lepine? Who were the victims? I read and watched all articles and videos I could find on the subject – it gave me a great sense of who these people were and what they went through. If that’s why the movie was made than I say job well done and recommend every Canadian (young and old) go see it.

Suzanne’s Take

*** out of 5 stars

I can’t remember the last time a film affected me on such a physical and emotional level as Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique.

Villeneuve, who previously directed the acclaimed Maelstrom, took on the daunting task of bringing his interpretation of the 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre to the big screen amid much controversy over whether such a film should be made at all. Why relive the horror, critics asked.

And relive it is exactly what the audience does – we’re thrust into the Montreal engineering school on that dark day: watching in stunned silence as a single-minded gunman walks into a classroom, separates men from women, orders the men outside, and then unloads on his female targets. I had my fists clenched in my lap for most of the film’s 76-minute running time.

Though billed as a film “based on real events,” and despite its title, Polytechnique is not a documentary. Names have been changed, out of respect for the victims’ families, and in the closing credits, actor Maxim Gaudette’s role is listed only as “The killer.” There is a reference to Ecole Polytechnique assassin Marc Lepine early on, as the killer reads the actual suicide letter Lepine wrote before carrying out his plans.

The film serves more as an account of what unfolded than a probe into an assassin’s mind and what made him do the things he did, and though that bothered some, I didn’t mind that Villeneuve avoided trying to pin down what made Lepine act. Though it’s a terrible event in Canadian history it’s also one that had profound and long-lasting effects and deserves to be put on film so that future generations are made aware of what happened.

It also touches on a perspective that was largely ignored in the wake of the tragedy — that of the male students at the school. Many were ashamed that they didn’t act to protect their female counterparts. One of the characters in the film, a student named Jean-Francois (Sébastien Huberdeau), does act, although too late to save the women in his class. Consumed by guilt, he takes drastic actions of his own; sad evidence that the events had consequences reaching far beyond the December day.

The film’s other main character is Valérie (Karine Vanasse, who also serves as producer). The bright, ambitious student comes up against a misogynist attitude well before she finds herself in a room with a woman-hating killer — in an interview for an engineering internship she’s told her chosen specialty is odd for females as it doesn’t leave much room for having children. It’s a none-too-subtle reminder of the challenges women faced at the time trying to succeed in a field that up until that point had been largely male-dominated.

Shot in black and white, Polytechnique is starkly beautiful at times, with scenes of snow falling over Montreal, and a downright gorgeous tracking shot of ice breaking off into the St. Lawrence River. Villeneuve, who admits to being inspired to make this film after seeing Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, about the Columbine tragedy, reportedly chose not to use colour in order to minimize the gore. I for one found the black and white served to accentuate certain things — the killer’s soulless eyes, the victims’ horrified expressions — and as a result was even more unnerving that I imagine a version in colour would have been. It was also a very quiet film, in the sense that there was very little dialogue — the filmmakers were able to shoot two versions, one in English, one in French — so when the killer starts firing his weapon the piercing sound of shotgun blasts is all the more intense.

I understand why many wouldn’t want to sit through the horrors of Polytechnique, but I think Villeneuve tackled the events of December 6, 1989 with respect and the desire to provide an accurate depiction of what occurred. For that he’s earned my respect.

ALSO OPENING THIS WEEK: Duplicity, Knowing, 12, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins

Top image: Karine Vanasse as Valérie. Courtesy Alliance Films.

Middle image: Maxim Gaudette as the “Killer”. Courtesy Alliance Films.