Contemplation of the mystery | Confusing and enjoyable ★★★ ½

A year after the death of his father in an accident in the forest, Éloi Cournoyer (Emmanuel Schwartz), an urban man with fragile confidence, is invited to join the ranks of a mystical order dedicated to defending the interests of hunting. From then on, his life sank into a whirlwind where realism, fantastic passages and hard drugs come together.

André Duchesne
Press

Hunting leads to everything, you just have to get out.

This formulation, often used to talk about professions, suits perfectly to the character of Éloi Cournoyer, key character of this hunting drama mixed with mysticism, hallucinations and shamanic rituals that would make more than one individual want to take his legs. around his neck.

It’s not bad what this big boy of Eloi wants to do, who obviously has the impression of suffocating in the middle of the forest whose flora and fauna, including the two-legged one, constitute the metaphor for everything. what is not working in his life.

Yes, it’s true, the story is sometimes confusing and populated by characters who are difficult to discover in full light (after all, we are in the woods!). But whatever, the whole is perfectly successful. For several reasons.

First of all, because the director was able to distill from this drama a few passages allowing to defuse the most destabilizing situations. And because the interpretation made by Emmanuel Schwartz responds perfectly to the order of the script. The latter passes in a fluid way from an almost Christic position, at the opening of the film, to that of a hunted man, bombarded with existential questions, cynical at the right time and finally enlightened.

Eloi is like the four seasons and the animals in the forest. It changes, transforms, metamorphoses. It took a man of the theater like Schwartz to carry this tale with both natural and mythological accents on his shoulders.

We also greet the entire cast, excellent. The only female character, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse embodies a Diane archer with a delicious ambiguity.

But what makes you want to applaud the most is the search for originality. Already, Quebec fiction films with hunting as an arena are a rarity. But that we approach the subject by blithely mixing genres with a lot of control is to be welcomed. The result is fresh and convincing. It feels good to have a change of scenery!

Finally, there is in this film a very particular atmosphere, similar to the one we had personally felt while reading the novel. The master of illusions by Donna Tartt.

So it is sometimes strange. But it’s downright enjoyable.

Indoors

DRAMA

Contemplation of the mystery

Alberic Aurtenèche

With Emmanuel Schwartz, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse and Gilles Renaud

1 h 41

★★★½

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