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Polytechnique (film)
Encyclopedia
Polytechnique is a 2009
Canadian film from Quebec written by Jacques Davidts and Denis Villeneuve
and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Set in Montreal
, Quebec
and based on the École Polytechnique massacre
(also known as the "Montreal Massacre"), the film documents the events of December 6, 1989 through the eyes of two students who witness a gunman murder fourteen young women. The film was released on February 6, 2009 in Quebec and on March 20, 2009 in Toronto
, Vancouver
and Calgary
. Its release has sparked controversy in Quebec.
The film was screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
on May 17.
The film jumps back and forth in time several times. It shows male student Jean-François who was ordered to leave the classroom. He does not just flee but he returns to try to stop the killer and/or help the victims. Two surviving women, including Valérie, play dead thinking the killer returned. Some time after the massacre Jean-François, feeling guilty for complying with the order to leave the classroom and abandoning the women, commits suicide.
The rest of the cast listed alphabetically:
's song "Everloving" (from his Play
album) is featured extensively in the trailer.
as well as Griffintown
and Westmount.
There were two versions of the film produced, one in English and one in French. The director Denis Villeneuve hoped the film would enter into the English-Canadian market, as well as the American
one. Villeneuve shot the film in black and white, so as to avoid the presence of blood on screen.
The name of the perpetrator is never mentioned in the film. The end credits list Maxim Gaudette's character as "The killer".
gave the film three and a half stars out of four, stating "Polytechnique makes no judgments, offers no panaceas. It shows the violence, faithfully recreating the historical record, but it doesn't wallow in it. Pierre Gill's brilliant monochrome lensing minimizes the effect of the blood. [...] It stands as a work of art, summoning unspoken thoughts the way Picasso's war abstraction Guernica
does in a scene of contemplation with Jean-François."
Denis Seguin of ScreenDaily.com gave the film a favourable review, writing "Like Gus Van Sant
’s Elephant, Polytechnique is a formalist interpretation of an atrocity, with a cool perspective on the events and much for audiences to read between the frames as the film moves back and forth through time."
Katherine Monk of Canwest News Service
s gave the film four stars out of five; "The paradox may sound grotesque, but it must be stated loud and clear: Denis Villeneuve and the cast of Polytechnique have transformed the tragedy of the Montreal Massacre into a work of profound beauty."
In January 2010, it was named the Best Canadian Film of 2009 by the Toronto Film Critics Association. Brian D. Johnson, TFCA president called it a "film of astonishing courage."
In April 2010, the film won nine Genie Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Villeneuve, Best Actress for Vanasse and Best Supporting Actor for Gaudette.
2009 in film
The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...
Canadian film from Quebec written by Jacques Davidts and Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve is a Canadian film director and writer. In his early career he won Radio-Canada's youth film competition "La Course Europe-Asie" in 1990-91. He is a three-time winner of the Genie Award for Best Director, for Maelström in 2001, Polytechnique in 2010 and Incendies in 2011...
and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Set in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and based on the École Polytechnique massacre
École Polytechnique massacre
The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained...
(also known as the "Montreal Massacre"), the film documents the events of December 6, 1989 through the eyes of two students who witness a gunman murder fourteen young women. The film was released on February 6, 2009 in Quebec and on March 20, 2009 in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
and Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
. Its release has sparked controversy in Quebec.
The film was screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
on May 17.
Plot
During a class a young man enters a classroom with a rifle. He orders the men to leave and the women to stay. They comply after he shoots into the ceiling to show that he is serious. He tells the women that he hates feminists. Although the women deny being feminists; he shoots at them killing some and wounding others. He then moves through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women.The film jumps back and forth in time several times. It shows male student Jean-François who was ordered to leave the classroom. He does not just flee but he returns to try to stop the killer and/or help the victims. Two surviving women, including Valérie, play dead thinking the killer returned. Some time after the massacre Jean-François, feeling guilty for complying with the order to leave the classroom and abandoning the women, commits suicide.
Cast
- Maxim GaudetteMaxim GaudetteMaxim Gaudette is a Canadian actor from Quebec. He won the Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2010 for his role as Marc Lépine in the 2009 film Polytechnique.-Credits:*2009: Polytechnique*2010: Incendies...
... The KillerMarc LépineMarc Lépine was a 25-year-old man from Montreal, Canada who murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in the "École Polytechnique massacre", also known as the "Montreal Massacre".Lépine... - Sébastien HuberdeauSébastien HuberdeauSébastien Huberdeau is a Canadian actor. He studied political science at university. He has played in a rendition of the play Talk Radio and was seen on screens abroad in The Barbarian Invasions , winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
... Jean-François - Karine VanasseKarine VanasseKarine Vanasse is a French Canadian actress. She currently appears in the role of Colette in the ABC TV series Pan Am. Vanasse is the daughter of council worker Conrad Vanasse and Renée Gamache, who was her manager at the beginning of her career.-Life and career:Vanasse was born in Drummondville,...
... Valérie
The rest of the cast listed alphabetically:
- Marie-Évelyne Baribeau ... Student
- Evelyne Brochu ... Stéphanie
- Mireille Brullemans ... Admission Office's secretary
- Jorge Bustos-Estefan ... Laughing student
- Pierre-Yves Cardinal ... Éric
- Larissa Corriveau ... Killer's neighbour
- Sophie Desmarais ... Female Student (3rd floor corridor)
- Jonathan Dubsky ... Frightened Student
- Marina Eva ... Student at the party
- Emmanuelle Girard ... Student behind speakers
- Nathalie Girard ... Injured student
- Natalie Hamel-Roy ... Jean-François' mother (voice)
- Adam Kosh ... Killer's roommate
- Manon Lapointe ... Killer's mother
- Pierre-Xavier Martel ... Security Agent
- Johanne-Marie Tremblay ... Jean-François' mother
- Anne Trudel ... Student behind speakers
- Michael Mast ... Scared Student (uncredited)
English
| Role | Actor original (Quebec Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.... ) |
Actor of voice (Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... ) |
|---|---|---|
| Valérie | Karine Vanasse Karine Vanasse Karine Vanasse is a French Canadian actress. She currently appears in the role of Colette in the ABC TV series Pan Am. Vanasse is the daughter of council worker Conrad Vanasse and Renée Gamache, who was her manager at the beginning of her career.-Life and career:Vanasse was born in Drummondville,... |
|
| Jean-François | Sébastien Huberdeau Sébastien Huberdeau Sébastien Huberdeau is a Canadian actor. He studied political science at university. He has played in a rendition of the play Talk Radio and was seen on screens abroad in The Barbarian Invasions , winner of the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film... |
|
| Marc Lepine Marc Lépine Marc Lépine was a 25-year-old man from Montreal, Canada who murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in the "École Polytechnique massacre", also known as the "Montreal Massacre".Lépine... /The Killer |
Maxim Gaudette Maxim Gaudette Maxim Gaudette is a Canadian actor from Quebec. He won the Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2010 for his role as Marc Lépine in the 2009 film Polytechnique.-Credits:*2009: Polytechnique*2010: Incendies... |
|
| Stéphanie | Evelyne Brochu |
Trailer
The trailer was released in late November 2008, in both French and English versions. An edited version of MobyMoby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
's song "Everloving" (from his Play
Play (Moby album)
Play is the fifth studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released on May 17, 1999 on V2 Records. While some of Moby's earlier work garnered critical and commercial success within the electronic dance music scene, Play was both a critical success and a commercial phenomenon...
album) is featured extensively in the trailer.
Production
The film was shot at Cégep de Maisonneuve and Collège AhuntsicCollège Ahuntsic
Collège Ahuntsic is a CEGEP in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in the arrondissement of Ahuntsic-Cartierville.-History:The college traces its origins to the merger of several institutions which became public ones in 1967, when the Québec system of CEGEPs was created.-Programs:The CEGEP offers two types of...
as well as Griffintown
Griffintown
Griffintown is the popular name given to the former southwestern downtown part of Montreal, Quebec, which existed from the 1820s until the 1960s and was mainly populated by Irish immigrants and their descendants....
and Westmount.
There were two versions of the film produced, one in English and one in French. The director Denis Villeneuve hoped the film would enter into the English-Canadian market, as well as the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
one. Villeneuve shot the film in black and white, so as to avoid the presence of blood on screen.
The name of the perpetrator is never mentioned in the film. The end credits list Maxim Gaudette's character as "The killer".
Reception
The film has received mostly positive reviews from film critics. Peter Howell of the Toronto StarToronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
gave the film three and a half stars out of four, stating "Polytechnique makes no judgments, offers no panaceas. It shows the violence, faithfully recreating the historical record, but it doesn't wallow in it. Pierre Gill's brilliant monochrome lensing minimizes the effect of the blood. [...] It stands as a work of art, summoning unspoken thoughts the way Picasso's war abstraction Guernica
Guernica (painting)
Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
does in a scene of contemplation with Jean-François."
Denis Seguin of ScreenDaily.com gave the film a favourable review, writing "Like Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
’s Elephant, Polytechnique is a formalist interpretation of an atrocity, with a cool perspective on the events and much for audiences to read between the frames as the film moves back and forth through time."
Katherine Monk of Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
Postmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
s gave the film four stars out of five; "The paradox may sound grotesque, but it must be stated loud and clear: Denis Villeneuve and the cast of Polytechnique have transformed the tragedy of the Montreal Massacre into a work of profound beauty."
In January 2010, it was named the Best Canadian Film of 2009 by the Toronto Film Critics Association. Brian D. Johnson, TFCA president called it a "film of astonishing courage."
In April 2010, the film won nine Genie Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Villeneuve, Best Actress for Vanasse and Best Supporting Actor for Gaudette.