New Films from Quebec at the MFA
Their timing might not be the greatest, starting a week or so
after the heartbreaking loss of the US
hockey team to Canada at the
Vancouver Olympics, but the New Films from Québec series
at the Museum of Fine Arts warrants your consideration.
Who knew that a vibrant foreign language film industry lay just a couple of
hundred miles to the north? One that combines the best features of Hollywood and European
filmmaking?
It opens tomorrow night with a screening of Philippe Falardeau's
"It Wasn't Me, I Swear!" The title is just
one of many lies told by 10-year-old Léon, a fractious and strange child who as
the film opens is trying to hang himself. But he is destructive as well as
suicidal, egging a neighbor's house, breaking into another's and setting fire
to his parents' bed.
That's where the problem might lie -- his mother is a little off
herself and his father is a human rights worker who can't solve his own domestic
crises so he drinks a lot. Despite her oddness, or because of it, Léon adores
his mother, so when she flees for Greece he gets even more out of
hand. He gets together with Léa, an abused neighbor girl his own age, and the
two plan... something.
Antoine L'Écuyer as Léon's is heartbreaking and hilarious, and his
voiceover narrative, unlike many in this kind of film, is kooky and not
cloying. He looks oddly like young Macaulay Culkin from the "Home Alone" films,
and the resemblance might lull you into thinking this is that kind of a Hollywood comedy. Then abruptly something disturbing or
extraordinary occurs - Leon runs screaming across the lawn to snatch the
suitcase of his departing mom, he sits down at a harpsichord and expertly plays
a Bach prelude, or blood spurts from a sudden wound - and the expectations
shift and you realize you're not in Hollywood anymore.
New Films From Québec runs through March 13.