This post, like yesterday’s post, also highlights a well-done recent Montréwood film.  You may wish to check it out when it shows in your own part of Canada (Click here for you your local provincial Francophone association, which will be able to help you find showing dates and locations across Canada).

Ceci n’est pas un polar was showing in theatres yesterday.  A Francophone buddy of mine drove into the city yesterday and we went to watch it together.  I was not planning to watch a second movie, two days in a row — but the reviews were too good to turn this one down.

The word “polar” has two meanings in French.  It means the North & South Poles, or other poles of attraction.  But it also means a “criminal saga” (usually recounted in a book or a film).  Thus the movie’s title could mean “This is not a normal crime story”.  

The movie stars Roy Dupuis and Christine Beaulieu.  Roy Dupuis is one of Montréwood’s most famous actors.  What most people do not realize is that Roy Dupuis is Franco-Ontario.   He was born in Northern Ontario and lived in Ontario into his high-school years before his family moved to Québec.

Click below for the movie trailer

In the movie, a taxi driver falls in love with a customer, but finds himself captivated by too many strange aspects to her life which she does not want to explain to him.  Out of love for her, he embarks on a journey as an amateur private detective to try to figure out why all the small things he is finding out about her are not making sense.  The series of misplaced facts finally make sense at the end of the movie, but it was quite an adventure to get there.

Most Francophones in Québec and across Canada have watched Roy Depuis for more than two decades on television and in the movies.  Even Anglophones across Canada may know him as the leading male role in the long-running television series Nakita.

But his role in this movie was probably one of his best ever (which is exactly what the critics have also been saying).

Check it out if you have the chance.

Below is a behind-the-scenes interview of the making of the movie: