Hagiographic, but I still love it!
"Louis Cyr" is entirely hagiographic but we're allowed - every nation is allowed that of their heroes. If anything, that's probably something we should doing more of: Exalting our heroes, mythologizing our exploits as a nation, and totally embracing our underdog nature, only to punch - or lift - above our weight class. For a nation composed of not that many people, to have quite a number of individuals to emerge from here as 'world class' is quite something. More so when you're talking about the 19th century.
However, a caution: Most films that flag-wave too much end up devolving into nationalistic kitsch.
Fortunately, "Louis Cyr" is a film that constantly has its titular character's humble roots in the background, yet never fully drops the weight of what all that entails on your plate. Unlike so many other smaller film cultures' epic treatments of its heroes, Cyr the character's French-Canadianness, and "Louis Cyr" the film itself, only deals in Canadiana when it purposefully serves the story.
He is at first a French-Canadian in Massachusetts, out of place around Irish immigrants. His provincial roots are at the forefront when a theatre manager expresses concern whether he could fill a large Montreal auditorium. His being a (secretly illiterate) simpleton from the colonies is an issue when he goes to London - after all, Eugen Sandow has beautiful muscles and writes books!
Never does the film really truly jab you in the ribs as a reminder, "Look! Look how Canadian he is!" If anything, he lived at a time when being Canadian was a disadvantage. Without saying it outright, "Louis Cyr" the film makes the case that Louis Cyr - the person - made being Canadian as something to be proud of.
It is this kind of rationing nationalism that other Canadian filmmakers can't always get a hold of (Paul Gross comes to mind, who always seems to call in an artillery barrage of Canadiana).
What "Louis Cyr" does is to simply tell the story of a man endowed with natural gifts overcoming his humble beginnings in order to cement his name into immortality, all whilst trying to be as good a father as he only knows how.
In that, I think it succeeds.
However, a caution: Most films that flag-wave too much end up devolving into nationalistic kitsch.
Fortunately, "Louis Cyr" is a film that constantly has its titular character's humble roots in the background, yet never fully drops the weight of what all that entails on your plate. Unlike so many other smaller film cultures' epic treatments of its heroes, Cyr the character's French-Canadianness, and "Louis Cyr" the film itself, only deals in Canadiana when it purposefully serves the story.
He is at first a French-Canadian in Massachusetts, out of place around Irish immigrants. His provincial roots are at the forefront when a theatre manager expresses concern whether he could fill a large Montreal auditorium. His being a (secretly illiterate) simpleton from the colonies is an issue when he goes to London - after all, Eugen Sandow has beautiful muscles and writes books!
Never does the film really truly jab you in the ribs as a reminder, "Look! Look how Canadian he is!" If anything, he lived at a time when being Canadian was a disadvantage. Without saying it outright, "Louis Cyr" the film makes the case that Louis Cyr - the person - made being Canadian as something to be proud of.
It is this kind of rationing nationalism that other Canadian filmmakers can't always get a hold of (Paul Gross comes to mind, who always seems to call in an artillery barrage of Canadiana).
What "Louis Cyr" does is to simply tell the story of a man endowed with natural gifts overcoming his humble beginnings in order to cement his name into immortality, all whilst trying to be as good a father as he only knows how.
In that, I think it succeeds.
- adogcalledstray
- Feb 7, 2019