MAMAN EST CHEZ LE COIFFEUR (Léa Pool). 97 minutes. Subtitled. November 12, 7:45 pm, Workman Theatre. For venues, times and trailers, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
Children see and hear everything, no matter what you do. In Léa Pool’s tender drama set in the mid-60s, 15-year-old Elise (Marianne Fortier) tries to rescue her family, which has been in deep trouble since her mother split.
Pool gets near-genius performances from Fortier and the rest of the kids, especially Hugo St-Onge-Paquin as the youngest child, who’s slowly retreating into his own world. Great tension is generated by the budding friendship between Elise and the deaf man who makes fishing flies in his trailer (Quebecois stage legend Gabriel Arcand). The film has a gay element, too, and the art direction is spectacular – love the big-finned cars and the supersaturated colours.
Kudos to the Rendezvous fest for programming Maman, but I can’t fathom why this beautiful movie – popular at TIFF 2008 – never got wider distribution in English Canada. See it while you can.