La turbulence des fluides

This beautifully photographed film tells the story of a scientist woman trying to explain an unusual phenomenon taken place in the Saint-Lawrence river in a recluse region of northern Quebec. Her work will take her to a journey she was not expecting which primarily deals with her own private longings. Some may say that the film takes way too long to get to the point which, from that perspective, must be the love story. Others may argue the exact opposite; that the love story is secondary to the natural disaster plot it therefore dilutes. I tend to believe that both stories are moving along at the same rate which is fairly slow and might even be perceived as hesitant. The overall effect is one of a very well done piece of cinema with a powerful dramatic finale but also of an almost lazy script that should have went through a couple more rewrites. In short, an uneven film with still lots of charm.

This film has a lot of good things going for it. The cinematography is awesome if too artificial at times. Some of the takes are too clearly references to classic images but still make for a nice overall look. The acting is generally convincing and precise although a few lines drops the ambiance too abruptly.

The plot itself is interesting if taken as an artistic process. Suspension of disbelief helps greatly as it's best to immerse oneself in the overall experience rather than nitpick on details. Quite a few counterfactual errors are to be expected in such situations. In a way, this could have been a great film if some things had been taken out. At times, the viewer is spoon-fed an interpretation of the "poetry" of the film. Letting the art speak for itself would have helped greatly.

For some reason, the same is true of the previews. Simply put, they seem to say too much although it's hard to tell what effect they would have on someone who knows nothing of the movie.

Let's hope that, next time, Manon Briand will let her artistic sense free and not impose it on the viewer.

In the warm and humorous Quebecois film, Chaos and Desire, shown at last year's Vancouver Film Festival, Alice Bradley, played by the lovely Pascale Bussieres, is a seismologist working in Japan studying the factors that can predict earthquakes. When the tides mysteriously stop flowing on the St. Lawrence River in her hometown of Baie Comeau, she returns to investigate and comes up against the bizarre behavior of local residents. In one instance, a little Chinese girl (Ji-Yan Séguin) sleepwalks every night at the exact same time. In others, a woman chops down every tree in her front yard, and the phone number of a fire-fighting pilot named Marc Vandal (Jean-Nicolas Verreault) has been ripped out of every phone book in town.

Running from a troubled past and consumed by loneliness, Alice must now deal not only with the problem of the tides but with a growing involvement with Vandal and the not so subtle advances of her journalist friend Catherine (Julie Gayet). When Alice uncovers the film's central mystery, the presumed drowning of Vandal's wife, the investigation turns away from science to the world of spirit and achieves a resolution of surprising power.

This movie is unbelievably corny, and it's pretty disappointing at the end. I didn't mind it for most of the movie, but I was sort of appalled come the end--or, rather, a few minutes before the end, when the whole thing comes to wrap (or, in my opinion, completely unravel).

In fact, this movie is what inspired me to finally register at IMDb to write a review.

Julie Gayet earns the first three stars. The fourth goes to the rest of the cast and a fifth to the overall production being decent.

But yeah, this script seemed to be written by a high school junior who just got dumped and was trying to woo back his love...or otherwise attempting--and failing fantastically--to be profound.

Well, I probably anticipated something more with this one. Or perhaps something else. Coming from Roger Frappier, producer of Maelstrom, and director Manon Briand (of Cosmos fame), I expected something more along the lines of Denis Villineuve or Andre Turpin. In other words, something New-Wavey, fresh, and arty. You do get something visually lavish, containing some great humour, and a nicely understated performed from Pascal Bussieres. However, you also get some trite sentimentality, poorly constructed religious iconography, and the overall feeling of something poppy and mainstream. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure that this film will do very well with domestic audiences (I'm speaking of Quebec, primarily). But it hardly makes for the challenging, satisfying artistic experience of "Maelstrom" and "Un Crabe dans la Tete." Maybe I'm expecting too much. Or something it was never intended to be.