Rewind 2012: Quebec filmmakers' creativity was there, but public ...

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Rachel Mwanza is terrific in Rebelle, Kim Nguyen?s child-soldier drama that is on the short list for Oscar nominations in the foreign language category.

MONTREAL ? Looking back on the past 12 months, there?s no escaping the fact that the defining story of the year in local showbiz circles was the ?crisis? in Quebec film. But those quotation marks tell a big part of the tale.

Fact is many, maybe most, in the film business, would deny there even is a crisis. Box office is down big time for local films. That?s the part that?s not up for debate. The year-end tally, which ticket-sales tracking firm Cin?ac will only release in January, will show that Quebec films accounted for about five per cent of the entire box-office pie, down from 10 per cent a year earlier.

But the producers, and no small number of pundits, claim this is just a blip on the radar, that there?s no need to worry. Not to mince words: they?re wrong. If folks aren?t plunking down their hard-earned cash to see local movies, something?s very wrong, and those producers have some tough questions to answer.

That?s the half-empty part. The half-full part of the equation is that there were so many terrific Qu?b?cois films in 2012, from Kim Nguyen?s child-soldier drama Rebelle to Xavier?s Dolan ambitious (if uneven) Laurence Anyways to Rafael Ouellet?s most accessible flick yet, Camion. I was perhaps most encouraged by the release of a series of remarkable, off-the-beaten-track indie pictures, like Simon Galiero?s La mise ? l?aveugle, Paul Barbeau?s Apr?s la neige, Denis C?t??s Bestiaire, Ivan Grbovic?s Rom?o Onze, and Steve Kerr?s Columbarium, easily the most under-rated homegrown title of the past year.

So the creativity is still there, but the public isn?t. The films mentioned above are all very good, but you?ll notice that the list does not include one film that rallied everyone the way C.R.A.Z.Y. or Incendies did.

The Quebec TV event of the year is even easier to pick. That would be Unit? 9, the extraordinary drama set in a female prison penned by head writer Danielle Trottier and produced by Fabienne Larouche. You can just mail Guylaine Tremblay her G?meaux trophy as best actress right now for her portrayal of Marie Lamontagne, a mother imprisoned for a crime of passion, but the rest of the cast is just as impressive. It was a big ratings hit and also generated an enormous amount of discussion.

What else? Sugar Sammy made off like a bandit, selling 100,000 tickets to his revolutionary Franglais show You?re Gonna Rire, which gave old-school nationalists nightmares, and to the politically correct all-French version En Francais SVP.

It was another huge year for Hollywood filming in Quebec with big U.S. films like RED 2, and White House Down. The cultural milieu in the province breathed a big sigh of relief a few weeks back when Pauline Marois?s first budget did not contain the major culture cuts many expected. But then artists noticed the budget also failed to live up to almost any of the cultural promises made by the Parti Qu?b?cois during the election campaign.

Artists were less pleased with the federal budget in March, which included 10-per-cent cuts to the CBC/Radio-Canada and to two Montreal-based institutions Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board of Canada.

Quebec film had the wind in its sails early in the year when Philippe Falardeau?s Monsieur Lazhar snared an Oscar nomination in the foreign-language-film category, the second straight year a made-in-Quebec film made it on to that prestigious short list.

And then there were none: Alternative weekly the Montreal Mirror went belly-up in late June, just weeks after the sad-sack online version of its rival weekly Hour had also unfolded. That leaves the city with no English-language cultural weeklies. The silver lining is that a slew of ex-Mirrorites immediately went and founded the online alt-culture must-read site Cult MTL.

This was also the year that former Montrealer Jessica Par? became a star in the space of a few minutes on the season?s debut episode of Mad Men, as she wowed new husband Don Draper and his ad-agency colleagues (and 3.5 million viewers) with her sultry rendition of the cult classic Zou Bisou Bisou.

Which has me thinking ? maybe a little dose of Par? is exactly what the slumping Quebec film scene needs. She hasn?t often been seen in major Quebec film releases in recent years. So why not bring her back to star in a big homegrown flick that?s both smart and accessible? Just a thought.

bkelly@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @brendanshowbiz

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Rewind+2012+Quebec+filmmakers+creativity/7739090/story.html

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