Polytechnique (2009)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
A dramatization of the École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, on December 9, 1989, where 14 female engineering students were murdered (and 13 were wounded) by a 25 year old psychotic misogynist armed with a semi-automatic weapon.
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What critics compared Polytechnique to
Though at first glance the pic would appear to have little in common with his previous work, Villeneuve has long shown an interest in the psychological and emotional consequences of violence, as evidenced by 2009’s serenely chilling, black-and-white “ Polytechnique ” (about a real-life Canadian mass shooting) and especially 2010’s Oscar-nominated “ Incendies ,” which “Prisoners” echoes in its fragmented central mystery and its theme of the good and ill transmitted from parents to children.
Villeneuve has an uneven CV (he’s bang on in his sober 2009 school-massacre drama Polytechnique, self-consciously earnest in 2010’s Incendies), but he’s also a versatile visual stylist.
Over the past 13 years, his films have included Maelstrom (hit-and-run, attempted suicide), August 32nd on Earth (horrific car crash) and Polytechnique (school massacre).
Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve specialises in intense, often confronting dramas with ominous one-word titles (Maelström, Polytechnique, Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario), and while he’s occasionally dabbled in the fantastic previously, this latest effort is his first (ugh!) ‘Genre Movie’.
As he did with 2009's underseen university shooting tone poem "Polytechnique," 2013's thoughtful kidnapping thriller " Prisoners ," 2014's chilling, thematically loaded brain-twister " Enemy ," and 2015's starkly unforgettable " Sicario ," Denis Villeneuve orchestrates a wondrous sustained tension.
Arrival, adapted from Ted Chiang's short story “Story of Your Life,” is the most muted film that Villeneuve has made, as the methodical sci-fi narrative offers little in the way of the coiled tension so central to his overt thrillers, nor does it anchor itself to some cataclysmic tragedy (like Polytechnique , the director's little-seen film about the École Polytechnique massacre).
At times pointedly sombre, and at other moments dizzyingly surreal, Arrival is shot with both a compassionate and calculating eye, something that’s become Villenueve’s stock in trade ever since his early days helming dark Québécois dramas (Maelstrom, Polytechnique, Incendies).
The director is Denis Villeneuve, and, as with earlier pictures Polytechnique, and Incendies, he draws a distinction between action and violence.
Sharing thematic concerns with Incendies and to a slighter extent Prisoners and Polytechnique , Villeneuve is considering the perpetual and cyclical nature of violence.
And escalate they do with skilful poise from director Denis Villeuve, who along with his work on Prisoners and true life Montreal Massacre thriller Polytechnique should be crowned the king of dread, as Villeuve successfully exploits the monstrous evil which is the Cartels as a beast that threatens to unleash at any moment.
Mr. Villeneuve’s 2009 feature, “Polytechnique,” was the almost unbearably meticulous reconstruction of an actual mass shooting at a Montreal university.
But even though this seems like a minor diversion for Villeneuve, the power of the director who made Polytechnique and the Oscar-nominated Incendies is evident.
Perhaps the film is an allegory for Villeneuve’s own creative to-and-fro between the more mainstream-oriented worlds of Incendies and Prisoners and that of his more experimental artistic endeavors such as Polytechnique and his wonderfully grotesque short Next Floor.
Perhaps the same could be said of Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve’s filmography, which includes the intriguing, self-consciously quirky Maelstrom (00); Polytechnique (09), Villeneuve’s re-creation of the Montreal Massacre, whose formal rigor owes much to Gus Van Sant’s similarly schematized Elephant ; the topical, symbol-laden revenge drama Incendies (10); and the topical, half-riveting, half-ridiculous revenge drama Prisoners (13), which also stars Gyllenhaal, and which sometimes feels like an apologia for the use of torture in the war on terror.