Forgotten, even after death
Loneliness affects more and more people in our modern and individualistic societies. Even after death. This is the starting point of this deeply human documentary on a subject that is not too human: the fate that awaits the bodies of the missing that no one claims or that their family and loved ones refuse to take care of. The number of unclaimed bodies in Quebec has increased in recent years.
Franco-Ontarian director Jean-François Martel wondered who the deceased are, if there are people who honor them or who sometimes think of them, and what happens to their bodies after the searches to find them. “takers” have turned out to be in vain. He therefore went in search of relatives and friends of people whose names appeared on the list of unclaimed remains published in Quebec. Along the way, he succeeds in telling the story, sometimes banal, sometimes heartbreaking, of some of them, through those who knew them.
Alongside these stories of life and disappearance, we get to know Father Claude Paradis, parish priest of Notre-Dame de la rue parish, who spiritually accompanies the homeless in the metropolis. Some end up on the disastrous list of unclaimed, and it is he who presides over an annual ceremony in memory of all the forgotten dead. The result is a modest film on a subject of infinite sadness, delivered with all the delicacy and respect necessary to make it a staple.
Not demanded
RDI, Tuesday, 8 p.m. and on Tou.tv
Outside newspaper
Another phenomenon that is growing in the cities of rich countries is the homelessness of a growing number of citizens who can no longer find affordable housing, or who find themselves homeless after personal and professional hardships. Lives without a roof, Americans Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk, puts faces and names on this “epidemic” of homelessness, which affects more than half a million people in our neighbors to the South.
The American documentary tells, over a period of three years, without narration and without make-up, the life stories of people who ended up on the streets for various reasons in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. It also highlights the grim inequalities that plague these big cities, the “not in my backyard” syndrome that comes with homelessness, and the dire lack of affordable housing for all those people who just want a roof over their heads. Or something that looks like it.
Lives Without Roofs (Lead Me Home en VOA)
Netflix, starting November 30
Good elf, bad elves
The American stop-motion animated series Santa Inc., under its wise and old-fashioned airs of production from another time (we think of the classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer dating from 1964 that the CBC shows us every year…), is in fact a comedy of “working environment” which is intended only for adults. His lines (at least those we have heard in extracts) in the language not always elegant, often filthy, and his politically incorrect situations and jokes will hit the mark with fans of irreverent animated series.
However, its plot, guided by the efforts of Candy (Sarah Silverman), an ambitious pixie who occupies the position of vice-president of the North Pole, this enterprise led by a Santa Claus a little above his business (Seth Rogen) , to run for this post which has always been occupied by white, paunchy men, turns out to be rather noble. But that’s not enough to make it a production for the whole family …
Under its more “frightening” fantastic production airs, the Danish series Elves is aimed at a rather larger audience, even if it risks making shivers a little, and making the cute little elves lose their luster … We follow a “normal” family, a couple and their two teenagers who are bickering continually, who leaves for the holidays on a rural island populated by people not always welcoming. Their stay will be quite shaken up, not to say ruined, by the rather disturbing presence of small hairy beings seemingly harmless, but which are far from it in reality. At least, in this universe worthy of horror films, but with festive contours.
Santa Inc.
HBO and Crave, starting Dec. 2, 8 p.m. in French version at Crave from December 14
Elves (Danish OV and VF)
Netflix, starting November 28
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