Ababouiné | Fancy Molasses

In Ababouinéhis 17^e film, the filmmaker André Forcier invites us to visit the Faubourg à m’lasse, at the twilight of the Great Darkness, in order to cheerfully flay the clergy and to effervescently celebrate the poetry of forgotten words.

Montreal, 1957. Every Sunday, 12-year-old Michel Paquette (Rémi Brideau) plays hooky and goes to the publisher Archange Saint-Amour’s (Gaston Lepage) to read poetry. Suffering from polio, the young boy takes the opportunity to help his old friend, who suffers from Parkinson’s, to type up the anticlerical pamphlet Long live secular Quebec!. With his daughter Rose (Mylène Mackay), Archange publishes Ababouinédictionary of forgotten words by André Rochette (Martin Dubreuil).

An anarchist teacher, Rochette allows Michel to distribute the pamphlet to the students in his class. A little sacristy bug, Angèle Moisan (Maïla Valentir) then rushes to warn her spiritual director, the vile vicar Cotnoir (Éric Bruneau), who quickly tells the ambitious Cardinal Madore (Rémy Girard). Protected by his grandmother Délima (Pascale Montpetit), Michel and his friends, Charlotte (Lilou Roy-Lanouette), Rose’s daughter, and Le Matou (Miguel Bédard), a cat-man and delivery man of all kinds, will have to fight for freedom of expression.

For André Forcier, cinema is a family affair. In addition to the presence of his partner Linda Pinet in production, the good advice of his friend Luc Dionne in the scriptwriting and the talent of his favorite actors, the director was able to count on the precious collaboration of his sons. Thus François P. Forcier, who collaborated on the production, and Renaud Pinet-Forcier, who plays the poor vicar Renaud, contributed to the screenplay. Laurie Perron, François’ partner, and Jean Boileau, friend of the filmmaker, also lent their pens.

It is through the lively music of his son François and Jo Millette, which evokes the festive cinema of Kusturica, that André Forcier takes us into the colorful world ofAbabouinéan old Norman word “relating to a sailboat stopped in the open sea due to lack of wind”. If the filmmaker seems to invite us to a joyful neighborhood party a few years before the Quiet Revolution, the subject he explores is anything but light.

In fact, claiming to be a Christian, Forcier is angry with the Catholic Church for having distorted the message of Christ. The anticlerical charge and political criticism that run through this tale with its scathing humor are reminiscent of those of Buñuel and del Toro. In this regard, we must salute the hilarious tandem formed by Éric Bruneau and Rémy Girard, the former evoking Gérard Philipe in The Beauty of the Devilby René Clair, and the second taking up with a perfect mixture of arrogance and truculence the character he played in I remember.

While he denounces the perversion of certain religious people, in a few shocking scenes where he demonstrates just enough of the horror they inflicted on their young victims, André Forcier delivers a vibrant homage to those who did not bow down to the men of the Church, like the signatories of Global refusal and the ardent defenders of the French language, crystallized in the character embodied by the moving Gaston Lepage.

The dictation that Rochette gives to his students is also a pure moment of poetry, like the patiently crafted dialogues that the actors put into their mouths with contagious pleasure. Sometimes, the musicality of Forcier’s words and the sometimes offbeat acting happily recall the films of Gilles Carle, the filmmaker’s mentor; the presence of Donald Pilon, who has lost none of his splendor, certainly reinforces this impression.

Dedicated to his uncle Marcel, a student of Borduas, the black sheep of the family because of his anticlerical thinking and one of the few to have encouraged him to become a filmmaker, rooted in his childhood memories, tinged with an irresistible magical realism, Ababouiné fits perfectly into the continuity of André Forcier’s work.

Certainly, there are moments of pure madness, fresh insolence and bawdiness that could put some people off, such as the pedicure scene between Bruneau and Girard, a true anthology piece, and the one involving Brother André (voiced by Stéphane Crête) and Pascale Montpetit, whose ecstasies would make Saint Teresa of Avila and other mystics pale with envy. While the burlesque and the grotesque threaten to derail everything, Forcier’s poetry triumphs. Led by Michel Paquette, a cross between Antoine Doinel of Four hundred blows by Truffaut, Oskar of Drum by Schlöndorff, based on the work of Grass, and Léo Lauzon by Leolo de Lauzon, the unusual and unique universe ofAbabouiné turns out to be a sweet invitation to dream.

Comedy

Ababouiné

André Forcier

Eric Bruneau, Rémy Girard, Rémi Brideau

1 h 34
In the room

8/10

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