In will by Denys Arcand, in cinemas on October 5th, Rémy Girard’s character explains what he did with his day: “I took a walk in the cemetery and saw an insignificant Quebecois film.”
I laughed so hard at the film’s premiere that I think I pierced the eardrum of the Radio-Canada culture columnist sitting to my right.
I laughed because I thought Arcand was pretty cheeky to scratch some of his colleagues like that.
But I also laughed because I often saw insignificant films from Quebec!
Photo agency QMI, Martin Alarie
REALITY VS. fiction
“Insignificant: without meaning, meaning”.
Testaments have meaning. Quite a lot, actually.
The funniest scene takes place during a literary award ceremony to which the character played by Rémy Girard is invited in the presence of the Minister for Inculture, sorry, for Culture.
All awards are given to women (or people with a uterus, as they say in hip circles) from minority groups or gender identities.
As they stand up to accept their trophy, Rémy Girard, a white, cisgender, heterosexual man in his 50s, is literally pushed to the ground and pushed around.
Arcand turns this scene into a Fellinian farce. Exaggerated, grotesque. However, it is disturbingly true.
Reread my columns from the last two years: How many funding agency programs are reserved for racialized people, indigenous peoples and LGBTQ2SAI+? Tens!
- Listen to the column on culture and society with Jean-François Baril and Sophie Durocher QUB radio :
In this memorable scene, the character Rémy Girard is honored, whose name is Jean-Michel Bouchard and who was confused with the excellent playwright Michel-Marc Bouchard (Les Feluettes, Les Muses Villages).
They will tell me: “Come on, Sophie, it is impossible that in Quebec a minister of culture does not know how to recognize the playwright whose plays are performed on all international stages!” “.
However, we have already seen a culture minister who didn’t even know André Brassard!
When a retirement home gets rid of its books and replaces them with video games, Rémy Girard asks why we don’t give them away instead of throwing them in the trash. “Nobody wants it,” Sophie Lorain replied. It’s crying.
When the Health Minister (played by Caroline Néron) brags about loving culture, she says that when her friends come to her house to eat, they can see the cornos that “decorate” her walls. I like Corno, but he’s not Riopelle, damn it!
Yves Jacques and Robert Lepage sum it up well in the film: “The only culture that politicians know is the Cirque du Soleil.” And Céline Dion. That’s all. That’s absolutely everything. All. »
FAKE NEWS!
What Arcand says about Quebec culture is both clear and heartbreaking. Hilarious…and sad.
The only “lack of realism” in the will is the inclusion of a literary magazine on public television.
That’s wrong, Mr. Arcand! Neither Radio-Canada nor Télé-Québec now deign to offer Quebecers who read a program worthy of the name.
Recently, a Montreal bookseller I was with denounced this scandal. His customers now listen to the French program La Grande Librairie with great devotion.
And who was Augustin Trapenard’s guest on September 13th? The Quebec author Éric Chacour presented his first novel Ce que je sais de toi.
What we know about you, Quebec, is that you don’t know your own culture.
