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Canadians Behind The Camera

Canadian Flag, Ottawa, October 2011

We see a lot of movies, most of them Americans as we are fed a steady stream of Hollywood blockbusters. Once in a while, we pick a French flick so that I can catch up with French culture—the most popular comedies are usually available at Jumbo Video. Once in a while, we watch classic movies of the 1990s, such as Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting.

My story with Canadian cinema didn’t start very well. When I first came here, Feng dragged me to see Men with Brooms. Keeping in mind I barely spoke English and didn’t know much about Canada, I automatically assumed it was a comedy about… guys doing housekeeping, a bit like Mrs. Doubtfire. Well, turned out it was a movie about curling. I didn’t even know curling was a sport.

Fortunately, over the years, we saw other movies that I actually understood this time, notably the excellent Eastern Promises (directed by David Cronenberg), The Barbarian Invasions (directed by Denis Arcand), and The Trotsky (by Jacob Tierney).

But I must admit I have a fondness for bilingual comedies.

When I watched Bon Cop/Bad Cop in 2006, I laughed so hard I must have missed half of the lines. So I watched it again. And Again. And it still makes me laugh. This is the story of an Ontarian and a Québécois police officer who reluctantly join forces to investigate on a body found hanging on top of the sign demarcating the Ontario-Quebec border. The dialogue is a mixture of English and French—literally, as both characters are bilingual. The movie plays on stereotypes Québécois and English Canadians have about each other’s. As Kevin Tierney, the script writer of the movie explains: “The francophones said that while the French characters were a bit clichéd, we had really got the anglo characters down. Yeah, everyone in English Canada wears a turtleneck and is constipated. In English Canada, people said we had overused anglo stereotypes, but congrats on getting those French characters down.”

I recently went to see another bilingual comedy by the same script writer: French Immersion. This time, four anglo Canucks and a New Yorker head to the fictional northern Quebec town of Saint-Isidore-du-Coeur-de-Jésus for, guess what, French immersion and intensive language classes. A barrage of culture clashes ensues between the rural folks in Quebec, the Indian restaurant owner, the Jewish anglophone, an ambitious politician and many other characters.

These movies are very fun because they revolve around Canadian culture and stereotypes: the two loneliness between Quebec and the so-called ROC (Rest of Canada), religion, politics—and yes, hockey.

In another category, Rob Spence, a film maker based in Toronto, is another interesting Canadian to follow. I got to know his work through Let’s All Hate Toronto, a tongue-in-cheek documentary exploring the reasons why everyone in Canada seems to hate Toronto (and the Maple Leafs).

Rob Spence lost an eye as a kid after gun backfired on him. He eventually had his disfigured eye removed a few years ago and decided to take the opportunity to become Eyeborg. Inspired by science fiction, he vowed to replace his prosthetic eye by a video camera, not to regain sight but to record the world from a new perspective. He also dabs into cybernetics, human augmentation, bionic parts and our surveillance society with a great sense of humour. Over the years, the eyecam prototype built by his slightly insane team was improved and frankly, it’s both scary and fascinating to watch him watch you. You can watch a bunch of videos about “the eyeborg” here.

So if you are a prospective immigrant, a newcomer or simply interested into Canadian culture, check out these movies and these directors. They will surprise you!

By the way, I was not paid to write this article. But if anyone wants to cast me for a new bilingual comedy…je speak franglais!

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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