Conte du Mile End
Jean-François Lesage
Canada | 2013 | 68 min
Languages : French, English, Russian, Portuguese
Subtitles : English, French
Is there a remedy for lovesickness? That is the question asked by this film, which follows a young newly-single man wandering the streets of Montreal, from dusk to dawn, in search of an answer, which his occasional encounters with friends or strangers willing to open their hearts could provide. The Canadian autumn hides many surprises…
Does a remedy for lovesickness exist? This eternal question, which thousands of poets throughout the history of humanity have attempted to answer, runs through the film like an explicit leitmotiv. The opportunity for this umpteenth quest is the breakup of a romantic relationship that we witness in the first scene: a young woman in tears has just left a young man, who is almost petrified by pain. Following this, from dusk until dawn for fifty nights, he wanders the streets of Mile End, one of Montreal’s trendiest districts, in search of an answer, which his occasional encounters with friends or strangers willing to open their hearts could provide. The Canadian autumn hides many surprises… The main quality of this film is not the subject addressed, which quite quickly reveals the unsolvable nature of the question, but rather the form of the story through which the protagonist’s adventure is told. The nocturnal spaces of the city, the chatter and the musical interludes end up transporting the viewer into a fascinating expectation of all that is possible.
Luciano Barisone
