Guy Édoin’s Ville-Marie is a visually striking film with a curiously dispassionate core. The film, co-written by Édoin, tells the stories of four individuals whose lives intersect one night at Ville-Marie Hospital in Montreal. A European actress (Monica Belucci) is filming in Montreal to reconnect with her son (Aliocha Schneider), who is trying to finally learn the identity of his father. A paramedic with PTSD (Patrick Hivon) leans on a nurse (Pascal Bussières), who is coping with an overcrowded emergency room by burying her own traumas.
These tales of love, motherhood, sex, and sacrifice unspool against a refreshingly unsentimental background. Édoin’s long following shots and unhurried close-ups give the film a measured pace, counterbalancing its almost melodramatic plot. This aesthetic exactitude comes at the price of emotional resonance, but for a film this gorgeous, who really cares? See this and admire it, even if the stories won’t linger.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB2WPgCyKlQ]
Ville-Marie is now available on VOD.
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