Denis Côté both wrote and directed this very strange yet intriguing film CURLING. The film is a thinking person's film, rather slow, in a minimalist approach to story and filming, yet the theme is universal and important - self-imposed isolation, fear and connection between people as exemplified by a bizarre father daughter relationship. Of note, the father and daughter of the film are in real life father and daughter. That adds. The title? Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. So be ready to past together the fragments of the film that are at times disturbing and at times humorous.
Set on the fringe of society, in a remote part of the countryside, CURLING takes a keen look at the unusual private life of a father and his daughter. Between his unremarkable jobs, Jean- Francois Sauvageau (Emmanuel Bilodeau) devotes an awkward energy to Julyvonne (Philomène Bilodeau). The two are isolated, with the father blocking his daughter by projecting his inhibiting lack of life into her, keeping her safe by making her stay small. She doesn't go to school, doesn't have any friends, doesn't have much contact with the outside world and so she is naively dependent on her shy introverted father to provide her with nothing - no TV, no computer, no mobile phone, the occasional rationed out bit of music from the Hi-fi. The fragile balance of their relationship will be jeopardized by some very dreary circumstances: Julyvonne finds a pile of frozen bodies and seeks some sort of solace to keep going back to be with them; a little boy goes missing; a trucker checks out of a motel room and leaves blood splattered everywhere. No real resolution to any of these incidents - and that fits the film - Little fragments that dangle in the wind like weird wind chimes that make this examination of isolation in today's society refreshingly unique. In French with English subtitles.
Set on the fringe of society, in a remote part of the countryside, CURLING takes a keen look at the unusual private life of a father and his daughter. Between his unremarkable jobs, Jean- Francois Sauvageau (Emmanuel Bilodeau) devotes an awkward energy to Julyvonne (Philomène Bilodeau). The two are isolated, with the father blocking his daughter by projecting his inhibiting lack of life into her, keeping her safe by making her stay small. She doesn't go to school, doesn't have any friends, doesn't have much contact with the outside world and so she is naively dependent on her shy introverted father to provide her with nothing - no TV, no computer, no mobile phone, the occasional rationed out bit of music from the Hi-fi. The fragile balance of their relationship will be jeopardized by some very dreary circumstances: Julyvonne finds a pile of frozen bodies and seeks some sort of solace to keep going back to be with them; a little boy goes missing; a trucker checks out of a motel room and leaves blood splattered everywhere. No real resolution to any of these incidents - and that fits the film - Little fragments that dangle in the wind like weird wind chimes that make this examination of isolation in today's society refreshingly unique. In French with English subtitles.