Diego Star

To cut to the chase, this film is so bleak, dark, and depressing you'll realize life isn't worth living and be dreaming up ways to kill yourself long before the film ends. Unmitigated torture, as anyone with a mood disorder will quickly verify. Even if life is pretty gruesome, why is it necessary to have every shot on the dullest January day in the snowfields of my native Canada, with not the slightest sign of a sunlight, let alone some relieving humour or even a smile to keep the devastation at bay.

That said, the acting of Isaka Sawadogo and Chloé Bourgeois was clearly excellent, so they should not be held accountable for this tragedy.

The Diego Star is a dilapidated freighter stranded in a shipyard on the St. Lawrence River due to engine failure. The ship is in dire need of a complete overhaul but the owners just want to patch up the machinery so that ii can take to the high seas, even in precarious conditions.

Traoré (Iwaaka Sawadogo), of African origin, is the second engineer of the Diego Star. He is unfairly accused of causing problems by the chief engineer. Traoré, as a Ken Loach working class hero, tries bravely to do the right thing for him and his comrades by warning the port authorities that working conditions in the ship are dangerous and that repairs that are in the books have not actually been made. He is crushed by the system; the port management ignores his arguments, his fellow workers (constrained to choose a dangerous job over no job) desert him and he loses his position, then his lodgings, finally his freedom.

Fanny (Chloé Bourgeois), a single mother living just above poverty level, works at the shipyard's cafeteria where she meets Traoré. She offers him lodging. Through her conversations with Traoré we learn something about what makes him tick; against his feelings he has been forced to accept a job that keeps him away from his family as the only way to provide for them. He tries to help Fanny and is gentle and fatherly with her child.

Director an script writer Frédérick Pelletier weaves a fascinating tale of an honest man brought down by the system. Script is spare and precise and direction is fluid. The backdrop of the unforgiving Québec winter, perfectly captured by cinematographer Philippe Roy adds poignancy to the story. A quality film.