Pace steps | imaginative as possible

A man tells his former lover about his run-ins with left-wing terrorists trying to stop the rise of an influential junk radio.

First feature films are the perfect place to experiment with freedom. After the refreshing This house, space mistral, farador, shitty day And Phi 1618it’s the movie’s turn The pace stepsby Alexandre Leblanc, to delirious as the seventh art of Quebec rarely does.

It is however not very palpable on the narrative level. The script smacks of full-on improvisation and it pushes open doors in terms of commitment and ideologies. His cynicism and irony are not the most subtle, while his dialogues can lack naturalness.

The story that won an audience award at Fantasia last summer, however, has this rare ability to return to the essence of cinema, which is to tell stories. By rehashing his astonishing adventures, the narrator (Jean-Sébastien Courchesne) recalls the need for creation, both to spice up his exploits and to win back his ex (Sophie Desmarais). This goes through incredible detours with an amateur theater troupe and the existence of a hallucinogenic vinyl record capable of brainwashing the population.

This fantasy is expressed by the director who gives himself to heart joy, mixing the most discordant genres, be it satire, romance, science fiction and paranoid suspense. It’s playful and psychotronic at the same time, tinged with a cartoonist aesthetic that offers its share of magical escapes and even a fight scene. We think of Olivier Godin who would have fun revisiting Scott Pilgrim.

The filmmaker Alexandre Leblanc comes from editing – notably on Young Juliet And prank – and he does not hesitate to explode the form. Above all, he knows how to surround himself well, whether it’s Peter Venne who offers a catchy soundtrack, Vincent Biron who co-signs a superb black and white photo direction with Alessandro LoBianco, and all his actors who play in the tone.

Taking as much from the singular and offbeat experience as from the tenuous and repetitive proposal, The pace steps is a unique object in our cinematography. When the imagination is in power, it is easier to forgive misbehavior.

The pace steps is presented on Saturday at Cinéma Moderne and Cinéma Public.

Indoors

Black comedy

The pace steps

Alexandre LeBlanc

With Jean-Sébastien Courchesne, Sophie Desmarais and Benoit Bourbonnais

1:23 a.m.

6.5/10