Set in a rural Québec village in the dead of winter, Jean-François, a single father, works at a deserted bowling alley at night and in a rundown motel during the day. His daughter, Julyvonne, never leaves their home. Jean-François isolates her in fear that contact with the outside world will scar her the way it has him.
雪國迷景, Curling - Geheimnisse im Schnee, Кърлинг, 冰壶, 컬링
Taiwan
Taipei Film Festival
CanadaG
Canada
Taiwan
Feels like a Haneke knockoff in the most unsatisfactory way possible. I enjoyed Denis Côté's Ghost Town Anthology, and respect his brand of Canadian snow town ennui, but adding loose threads for the sake of iconology should never be your go-to indie trope.
At the core of Curling is a reticent father-and-daughter relationship that's challenged by a presumably dangerous world. We follow the daily routines of the duo, as one works between jobs, and the other stays at home with very limited contact with the outside world. Despite unimpressive cinematography and lacking technical showcase, one can still cherry-pick mildly intriguing moments from this slow burn. There are plot developments here and there, almost all of which amount to zero momentum in the end.
Overall it feels like placid waters with menace underneath, although Côté never intends to dive beneath the surface to begin with, and the "menace" in the end turns out to be just a red herring.
Denis Cote's French-Canadian film Curling is somewhat of a deconstructed nightmare, the type of snowy bleak mindfuck that you wake up from and immediately have to jot down and try to make sense of. Good luck.
Jean-Francois and Julyvonne are a father and daughter that live in near isolation in the countryside of Quebec. Jean-Francois does maintenance at a bowling alley and roadside motel while young Julyvonne stays at home and explores the surrounding woods.
On paper, that is what Jean-Francois strives for, a completely alone and simple existence, but that ideal way of life is constantly slipping through his fingers, maybe other things are too...
The key element here is Ambiguity. We are shown these whispered moments of horror,…
Y'a comme un bout où tu te dit "ah bon ok ça va être une version "Québec dépressif" de Fargo", parce que y'a l'air de faire aussi frette pis y'a autant de mauvaises décisions qui s'y prennent (diégétiquement, je veux dire), mais finalement ça va dans sa propre petite zone à part.
Mais c'est vrai que ça peu rendre un peu agacé, quand même, cette non-résolution d’absolument tout ce qu'on mets en place.
J'entretiens un amour assez grand pour ce film que je suis allé voir 3 fois en une semaine au cinéma pendant ma première année de cégep. C'est pas le film qui m'a fait aimer le cinéma, mais il m'a certainement donné envie d'en faire.
Faisait longtemps que je l'avais vu et je ne suis pas déçu. C'est encore très touchant, Emmanuel Bilodeau et sa fille sont superbes à voir ensemble. Et les moments où il se rend compte qu'il ne sait pas éduquer sa fille et qu'il lui cause finalement peut-être plus de tord que de bien sont déchirant. C'est pour moi le film le plus émotionnellement fort et formellement réussi de Denis Côté.
Belle projection en 35 au Ritz, pairing avec la Superpils de Trou du diable/Molson, une bonne pilsner pintable, sèche, mais goûteuse. Pas hivernale comme Curling, mais t'sais, ça fittait quand même bien malgré tout.
With it's liberal and unassuming usage of the cinematic ellipsis, Curling is strikingly cryptic yet easy to follow. Denis Côté crafts a unique atmosphere from this story of a reclusive handyman and the daughter he shields from the rest of the world. The chilly environs are snowy and sparse with everything rendered as strangely familiar as a nicotine stained sweater hugging a slow beating heart. There are unexplained elements of melodrama and violence silently lingering around the periphery but those sometimes sinister flourishes never overwhelm the sinuous, witholding craftsmanship or the layers of mystery at the movie's core. What emerges is a quietly magical and intriguingly macabre exercise in stillness, sincerity and singular jokes. It's also, at times, an extremely deadpan family drama of understated warmth, inviting yet pointedly distant in equal measure.
J'aime l'hiver et les champs québécois en hiver. C'est mystérieux.
Côté has a starting point and nowhere to take it. His sense of tone and aesthetics are right up my alley, but his writing lacks any progression. A cold, inert drama.
"A quote from the Guardian on the back cover compares Curling to Psycho, though the film it reminded me most of was Fargo, and not just for the inclement weather. Like the Coens’ film, Curling takes great pleasure in revealing deep venality under the surface of a region usually represented by a kind of uncomplicated rural niceness. It also has an acid sense of humour, although Côté’s film is deadpan enough to make the Coens at their most inscrutable – The Man Who Wasn’t There, say – look like broad farce. The film may begin as a quiet portrait of off-the-grid life, but less than half an hour in the bodies start piling up – literally."
Read more at The Geek Show.
Ça demeure aujourd'hui le meilleur film de Denis Côté.
Isoliert im Leben, abgeschieden in der Gesellschaft. Die Kälte der Umgebung, der Natur und der Menschen in «Curling» kriecht unter die Haut, nicht selten musste ich an «Fargo» (Joel Coen, 1996) denken. Der Film von Denis Côté driftet aber nie ins Brutale oder Komödiantische, sondern bleibt ruhig und nimmt sich Zeit für die Leere.
Ob mit der Zeit alles besser wird, kann niemand sagen. «Curling» inspiriert aber dazu, sich gegenseitig stärker zu unterstützen.
One of those films where the analysis of it is so much more interesting than the actual film, for me. The blu-ray I got contains essays that dive into the protagonist’s “unsettling, furtive delicacy,” talk about how the “skilfully delineated interior spaces and precisely managed silences” are the works of a maturing filmmaker, and ponder over what the film’s unsettling, mysterious aura is actually trying to convey. It all sounds so good, but in practice I found the film pretty bland. It felt like a pretty obvious movie about emotional repression, fear, and loneliness, wrapped up in a slow cinema style that promises interesting resolutions to the questions it asks, only to not deliver those answers in any real satisfying…
GERMAN
Am Anfang ist ein Mädchen beim Augenarzt. Der Arzt stellt eine Diagnose und fragt den Vater indirekt, warum das Mädchen nicht in die Schule geht. Er bekommt keine Antwort. In der nächsten Szene gehen die beiden eine Straße durch eine verschneite Landschaft entlang, es windet sehr stark. Ein Polizeiauto hält vor ihnen, der Polizist steigt aus. Er ist offensichtlich misstrauisch und befragt den Mann nach seinem Woher und Wohin. Diese Bilder sind schlicht und ergreifend großartig. Allein damit hat mich „Curling“ für sich eingenommen. Der Film ist zugegebenermaßen wenig ereignisreich bzw. kommen beim Zusehen immer mehr Fragen auf und man kann durchaus ungeduldig werden.
ANFANG MINI-SPOILER
Warum isoliert der Mann seine Tochter zu Hause? Wovor hat er Angst? Was…
