In the lead up to the 7th Canadian Film Festival in Australia (August 2012), join us as we countdown the Top 100 Canadian Films of the past 30 years. We'll be posting one film a day leading up to Canada Day on July 1st 2012. Do you agree with our team favourites? Let us know your thoughts!
Le Polygraphe opens with the titular lie detector test, when a man – Francois - is interrogated about the death of his girlfriend. He can’t remember a thing. Assembled around the tragedy is a web of characters all linked in some way to the murdered woman. One is suspected of the killing, a second is the forensic expert who carried out the post-mortem, while a third is auditioning for the role of the victim in a movie dramatisation of the case.
Sex and obsession are recurring themes in this intricate Hitchcockian thriller by master playwright and director Robert Lepage. Based on a play he co-wrote with Marie Brassard, the film blurs the line between reality, memory and fiction, a recurring theme in the Quebec artist’s body of work.
As is the case with a lot of Lepage’s oeuvre, the characters’ work mirrors Lepage’s own investigations. Francois, for example, is writing a thesis called ‘Cultural Alienation and Loss of Identity in Political Exile’. In a way, Lepage replaces conventional plot with character studies, unpacking his existential themes in a series of portraits rather than narrative acts.
As with Possible Worlds and Far Side of the Moon, Lepage weaves together layered realities, unbound by the tyranny of traditional storytelling: sympathetic characters, linear narrative, neat resolutions. This requires a lot of work on the viewer’s part, a challenge that not all cinema-goers relish. If you’re into this kind of active, almost investigative viewing though, it’s a rewarding film to pick apart and reconstruct over a bottle of wine after a screening.
While the film met with a lukewarm critical reception and indifference at the box office upon its 1996 release, Le Polygraphe is an intriguing and imaginative work that must be evaluated on its own terms. Beautifully made and full of the playful innovations and technical trickery Lepage is known for, it’s a film that demands to be rediscovered.
- Matt Ravier
“An intriguing, teasing thriller” – David Stratton
To see the other films in the countdown so far, click here.