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!
Adapting his own successful one-man play, acclaimed artist Robert Lepage delivers with Far Side Of The Moon a poetic meditation on humankind's need to find a reason for its existence.
Philippe is a middle-aged man (played by writer-director Robert Lepage) contending with his mother's recent death, with the growing rift between him and the only other member of his family, his younger brother Andre (also played by Lepage), and the existential loneliness of the mid-life crisis. Space and time twist in on themselves as Philippe seeks to find meaning in his life and his place in the universe.
Lepage is fantastic as both the narcissistic loser and his more successful gay brother, two sides of the same moon represented as mirror versions of themselves. There's also a discreet elegance to the screenplay, whose disparate elements slowly align like orbiting planets, creating order and beauty where none seemed to exist.
The lavish production - one of the first shot in HD digital in Canada - displays the trademark technical prowess Lepage usually brings to his elaborate stage productions. The special effects and sly sleights of hand are put to the service of an intimate, personal story with rich philosophical undertones.
Like all of Lepage's work, his fifth feature film is imbued with intellectual curiosity and existential questioning. His skill lies in his ability to externalize navel-gazing introspection, translating it into a series visually arresting tableaux. This poetic and playful representation of the inner-mind makes the most of the medium's ability to bring imagination to life.
- Matt Ravier
"Reworking his own raw material, Lepage spins a rich, moving film that acknowledges humanity's power to breakout of Earth's daily gravity; in the process, he leaves audiences floating." - The Village Voice