After having chained the popsicles in nineteen eighty onestole car radios in 1987 and multiplied the misfortunes in love in Italy in 1991Ricardo Trogi continues to narrate the worst misadventures and bad deeds of his youth in 1995which recounts his eventful participation in The race destination world.
This show, broadcast on Radio-Canada between 1988 and 1999 — which notably launched the careers of Denis Villeneuve, Philippe Falardeau and Hugo Latulippe — sent aspiring filmmakers on a grand journey around the world during which they were invited to make around twenty short films in as many countries.
Although we can imagine that traveling the planet alone with limited means, without access to the Internet and without a telephone was not easy, nothing prepares us for the hell into which young Ricardo Trogi, now in his mid-twenties, finds himself when he tries to make a film on excision – a subject still controversial today – in Egypt, and which would shake the artistic ambitions of just about anyone.
First, the question is on everyone’s lips. The formula, repeated four times by the director of Quebec-Montreal (2002), is it running out of steam? Partly, but that would be to forget the feeling of satisfaction, comfort and reassuring nostalgia that accompanies the act of putting on old slippers again.
Thus, we happily find Jean-Carl Boucher — who particularly excels in the art of appearing overwhelmed by events — in the main role. However, we would have taken more from Sandrine Bisson and Claudio Colangelo, who once again play the parents — one eccentric, the other exemplarily stoic — of Ricardo Trogi. Even if the first takes on the features of a highly caricatured character who could start to irritate as she seems so frozen in time, we love her as much as we did on the first day. By isolating each of them on their own, we lose the most delicious side of the trilogy.
The director’s commentary — who narrates most of the story in voice-over — is always funny and refreshing, in addition to adding a welcome perspective and self-mockery to situations that are sometimes difficult to adhere to because they seem so ridiculous — at least to those uninitiated in the famous Race.
Even if the scenario is uneven and sometimes lacks dynamism, the viewer enters with eyes wide open, and for many with nostalgia, into the adventure of this show which puts quite a bit of everything to the test: the heart, patience, courage, determination and artistic vision.
We would have even liked to see more. Because by choosing to focus on a single film and a single destination, the director relies a little too much on the comic devices that have made his mark, but which here begin to become a little redundant; especially since the burlesque situations that the hero is confronted with are often relentless.
It all culminates in a touching denouement that reiterates the importance of The race destination world in the journey of Ricardo Trogi and in the development of the filmmaker he subsequently became, and which justifies the presence of this fourth part in the story of his life. The ideal moment for pull the plug ?