Rating: NNN
Cruising Bar (Alliance, 1989) D: Robert Ménard, w/ Michel Côté, Louise Marleau. Rating: NNN DVD package: n/a
The gimmick – and it’s a great one – is that Michel Côté plays all four of the men going out to get lucky on a Saturday night: Jean-Jacques the Peacock, Gerard the Bull, Patrice the Lion and Serge the Worm, and seems to be four different actors. Better yet, Côté’s caricatures of males in heat work as both comedy and character study.
Director Robert Ménard sticks close to reality in setting and action and gives us time to watch the men dig their own graves, which they do with a slow, methodical deliberation that’s a little reminiscent of Blake Edwards’s glacial pacing but without that director’s gloss and with a level of realism he never aspired to.
Since the sequel, featuring both Ménard and Côté, is due in theatres June 27, you’d think Alliance would have taken the trouble to subtitle the Côté interview. But no.
EXTRAS Côté interview in French, no subtitles. Widescreen. English, French audio and subtitles.
