Il pleuvait des oiseaux

Based on the novel by Jocelyne Saucier: in rural, northern Quebec, three elderly men (played by Gilbert Sicotte, Rémy Girard, and Kenneth Welsh) reside in a cottage in the woods, living as separately as possible from outside society. Their lives change as an elderly woman (Andrée Lachapelle) escapes her nearby psychiatric hospital to live with them and a young photographer/historian (Ève Landry) wants to know more of their experiences during a massive forest fire that devastated the region many years before.

This film is a fascinating story about fascinating outliers and how they connect with each other. Another character, played by Éric Robidoux plays the nephew of the elderly woman. He manages to connect the other unusual characters with each other while adding a few quirks of his own to the story.

Occasionally, some of the connections are confusing or unexplained. And there is a serious flaw in that there seems to be no police investigation after a senior psychiatric patient has gone missing. But luckily, the strengths of the film outweigh the flaws.

The story and its characters provide a deep perspective of life from people who live differently - sometimes not by their own choices. While it is sometimes easy to dislike the historian for acting like a jerk, her perspective is also given validity. Here, there is good ambiguity. And the acting by the elder actors add a lot to the film's beauty especially that of Lachapelle, her final film as she died late last year. And let's not forget the breathtaking views of the forest and lake. - dbamateurcritic

This is an adaptation of the Jocelyne Saucier novel, itself a wonderful, very short book that I'd recommend reading before you see the film. They are in many ways quite different and appear to want to accomplish different, equally valid things.

The film is a meditation on being old, not growing old, and the choices that one (young or old) can make. Three men have taken to living in the woods of northern Quebec (northern Ontario in the book), deliberately, for personal reasons, and one dies (at the very opening of the film). They are soon visited by Steve, a local innkeeper who delivers goods to the men, and his aunt Gertrude, who lives (until she visits Steve and family) in a psychiatric institution. Steve convinces the two men to look after her.

Concurrent with this storyline is that of Raf, a photographer (called simply The Photographer in the book), who wants to interview the third, now-deceased man, who survived the Great Fire in the early 1900s. (There actually was a great fire in Northern Ontario in 1916, at Matheson.) She imposes herself on the lives of the two old men and is somewhat of a romantic foil for Steve.

Marie des Neiges (as Gertrude now calls herself) becomes amorously involved with Charlie, and it is their relationship that is at the centre of the movie. They explain their life choices -- or lack therof, in Marie's case -- and how they think of themselves now. There is a scene where they make love, which is unlike anything I have ever witnessed on screen: it is tender, slow, meandering, and purposefully anti-climactic (pun intended). The north looks beautiful, as do these two together, and it isn't at all sentimental.

Yes, the film is slow, but I think that it is a deliberate choice. The director isn't seeking to deliver a propulsive narrative full of suspense and action. We are outside the city in a rural place that has its own rhythms, which the film reflects. At one point, the character Tom sings an entire Leonard Cohen song in a bar, and you have to wonder why it's there (beyond its allusion to birds and that it might stand in for a description of Tom's life). You have two choices: wish the film would hurry up or, as I decided I must, sit back and watch it all unfold. Glad I did.

A few thigs that didn't quite work: a major decision of one of the characters is handled, I thought, rather poorly. (It was done much better in the novel, where the decision is not a decision but a surprise.). Raf is presently as a rather aggressive reporter, and is really irritating, who is by no means, as Tom says, "a beautiful woman." Steve's storyline fades -- what happened? The book is more clear.

One final thing: the book's backstory about the fire has been largely edited out of the film, which was a wise choice, I think. It would have been far too distracting.

Halftone film. One of those rare films where the actresses and actors are all wonderful, where the camera is used very very well, where the photography is sometimes brilliant, where the soundtrack is adequate, where old age is filmed in a simple, respectful way and without scruples, but where the recipe does not work. Finally, it ends up taking hold in the last minutes with an ending that we don't see coming and which falls on us like a ton of bricks; ouch! This outcome and the excellence of the acting save a scenario which lacks depth and which is rather a rather banal collage of dull dialogues.

I saw this film at the Glasgow Film Festival. I found it confusing to start with but once I got the plot and characters established I was more engaged. The plot has two strands which sometimes interlink not always successfully. However as the film builds to it's conclusion the dominant plot line relating to the aged protagonist builds very well.

The story revolves around four elderly people, three men and a woman, joined by two secondary characters. One of the men dies at the very beginning of the film, but his spiritual presence is nonetheless felt. Each main character is surviving a difficult past and takes refuge in an individual cabin in the woods, near a lake. Friendships and amorous relationships are formed in idyllic settings, during a beautiful summer without rain and mosquitoes. In the meantime, a forest fire is approaching. What is the meaning of existence for each of the main characters? What will be their future?

These premises are interesting, but unfortunately the film lacks rhythm and lags. One feels that for some scenes, the film director refused to leave images on the floor of the editing room, notably with regards to an erotic scene that brings nothing to the story and whose object was probably aesthetic. 10-20 minutes of film should have been cut to accelerate the pace and generate more curiosity than waiting time. As for the acting, while Gilbert Sicotte and the extras are very good, most others have difficulty adopting the right tone, thus making them less convincing, which I would fault on insufficient actor direction. Finally, the action takes place in a sanitized version of nature; no mosquitoes, no black flies, no dirt, no rain and no preparation for the coming winter. You buy this if you live in the city; you don't otherwise.

But this is the director's third full length film, after Familia (2005) and Gabrielle (2013), the latter being much more engaging and convincing. She is learning the hard way, but she is promising.