I was bowled over by the choir miniseries Megantica neat and loaded production by Alexis Durand-Brault and Sophie Lorain, which will be released on Videotron’s Club illico on Thursday.
The end of the fourth episode (of a total of eight) will pulverize your heart. Me, I broke. Hello, he’s gone.
Truly, it is impossible not to cry at the distress and horror that the inhabitants of Lac-Mégantic experienced in the middle of the night on July 6, 2013, when a train filled with crude oil destroyed their center -city.
Whether Megantic shakes us so much, it’s because a) we followed this disaster live on the news channels continuously, and b) the characters who populate the excellent episodes did indeed exist. Their names have been changed by the author Sylvain Guy (confessions, mafia inc.), details of their lives have been altered, but they all had a beer at Musi-Café before the deadly derailment that killed 47 people.
And Megantic does not unfold like a highly touted series at the Chicago Fire Or Station 19. It’s a lot more substantial and sensitive as a proposal.
The scenario of Megantic focuses on a core of Méganticois who were at the heart of this appalling railway tragedy. How is their life before, during and two months after the train accident? That’s where Megantic brings us: into the capsized daily life of ordinary people, told with humanity and realism. The special effects are particularly successful, nothing seems cheap in this high quality miniseries.
In fact, each of the eight episodes focuses on a specific character. The first details the unfinished love story between bubbly singer Gabrielle (Lauren Hartley) and shy underwater welder Patrice (Olivier Gervais-Courchesne).
Compact and efficient, this episode skillfully introduces the many characters of Megantic (the distribution throws some), which will cross for eight hours as in a film of Robert Altman. It’s extremely skilful as a process and the scriptwriting work was colossal.
In the second episode, Alexis Durand-Brault’s agile camera lands on Corine (Catherine Paquin-Béchard), a very intense young woman who works in landscaping and behind the bar at the Musi-Café.
Corine is perceived as a fighter, a strong girl, but the explosion of July 6 will unearth traumas that she had buried deep in her head. This episode on mental illness is particularly moving and well acted.
Delivered at the third hour, Megantic focuses on the tragic fate of the three Lamarre brothers, Vincent (Bruno Marcil), Daniel (Éric Robidoux) and Jérôme (Fred-Éric Salvail), who operate an excavation business. Their sister Julie (Isabelle Guérard), who is celebrating her 40th birthday, is going through a painful separation and you suspect that the state of the Lamarre family will not improve after the disaster.
Presented in the fourth episode, the case of volunteer firefighter Bryan (Joakim Robillard), in his early twenties, shows with delicacy, and even in a poetic way, the consequences of a post-traumatic shock like the one experienced in Mégantic. Take out the handkerchiefs, lord.
No, Megantic does not show Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche, nor does she dwell on the technical details of the investigation into the failures of the locomotive. On the other hand, the driver of the death train, renamed Tim Richards (Duane Murray), is entitled to his episode, the seventh. His name is Tom Harding in real life.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CLUB ILLICO
A scene from episode 7, dedicated to the conductor, played by Duane Murray
Who says choral series says crossover of characters. A harmless scene in one episode becomes crucial in the next, when the point of view on the event changes. This is amazing.
And as the story unfolds in a tightly knit community, a clear bond between the protagonists emerges over the viewing. Another strong point: the dialogues of the series ring true.
Megantic does not try to embellish the scenario by purging it of its more murky elements. We see charred corpses, burning men screaming, balls of fire rising towards the sky, scenes of devastation worthy of The Last of Us. They scream in pain, they scream in despair, they cry profusely and the train always whistles at the same time.
It’s not so much the look gory who knocks in Megantic, but the misfortune that befalls so many loving people. They are good people that we see on screen. What happens to them has no damned common sense, especially since mourning, unhappiness or guilt continue to haunt them nearly 10 years after the fire.
You suspect now that Megantic is not consumed in bursts like a candy series. It is better to take your time to watch it, even if it means disembarking after a few episodes to come back to it later. This television train, unlike the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train, can be stopped whenever you want.