Montral Sextet

Montreal Sextet is a tribute to the city of Montreal, which celebrates its 350th anniversary this year. Five of Canada's foremost film directors, three from Montreal and two from Toronto, portray the city in an episode each. The episodes present the directors' personal and loving reflections upon the city.

Comment:
The first episode in Montreal Sextet starts with some cows grazing in a pasture in the middle of the city. From there we are invited to a party where the host gets himself all confused in polite phrases while wishing his guests welcome. The part is called Seen From Elsewhere and can be viewed as the society party, seen from the perspective of the cow pasture. The connection between these two ''social' spheres is not hard to see. And in this celebration of the 350th anniversary of the city of Montreal in five different versions, we find a great deal of irony.
It brings to mind an old acquaintance of mine from French Canada who in a way reminded me of a cow, while, at the same time, being very well-mannered and eloquent. A person that had a lot in common with that which, in my opinion has been typical of Canadian film, and which perhaps still can be found in some of the episodes in Montreal Sextet; a mixture of the farm and
good literature. But in the last few years some of the Canadian film makers have replaced the milking stool with the truck and the pail with the milking machine. Patricia Rozema and Atom Egoyan have stood outside the cow pasture with films in English, which may have contributed to a wider geographic distribution of their works. The form of their films present a kind of large-scale production aesthetic. Egoyan's hyper-modern human being that cannot cope without Big Brother's information and Rozema's frustrated woman in search of self-fulfillment, are examples of people that can be found all over the industrialized world.
Montreal Sextet will make you laugh, like in the beginning of the above mentioned Seen From Elsewhere by Denys Arcand. But there is an ambiguity in the tone of these films that also leaves room for sorrow. Had I been in a different mood I might have cried. Like over Atom Egoyan's fat tourist or Michel Brault's old couple. They balance on the borderline between cliches, burning pain and brilliant comedy. Montreal Sextet is not a celebration of a big city. The perspective does not bring skyscrapers to mind, but rather a big small town. Or maybe even more, a green cow pasture, with a number of celebrating inhabitants that alternate between mooing and ruminating in chorus.
Cristel Nyqvist

Orig. titel
Montréal vu par...: Medverkande
Arsinée Khanjian, Sheila McCarthy: Producent
Denise Roberts: Manus
Paule Baillargeon, Hélènele Beau, Michel Brault, Atom Egoyan, Léa Pool, Patricia Rozema: Foto
Paul Sarossy, Jean Lépine, Eric Cayla, Pierre Mignot, Guy Dufaux: Musik
Claude Léveillé: Talat språk
French, English