User reviews

There is a beauty that pervades this movie, despite its awful subject matter, and perhaps that and the constantly falling snow, help imbue this with a sadness all the more profound. I was confused as to why there was no resistance or assistance and whether it was a hair colour change at the end that added to my confusion but none of this affected my feeling of reverence towards the film itself or its director. I'm not sure if I had seen this upon release I would have imagined Denis Villeneuve would be equipped to go on to make a successful sequel to Blade Runner a remake Dune or to tackle Cleopatra but the talent is certainly evident, even in this quiet, subdued, calm and effective account of a mass slaughter.

This film, shot mostly handheld with a black and white color grade, is a realistic recreation of a real life nightmare scenario that happened not too long ago in modern history. Focusing on a small group of fictional recreations of real life people, this film truly shows the dangers of untreated pyschological disorders, including depression, and the dangers of anti social idealogy in the hands of an armed person. It is a well done film with excellent acting from the cast, and is an anxiety inducing and truly negative experience, but one worth watching, to both remember the horror of the past, and to realize that such events still happen far too frequently in the present.

A tense early Denis Villenueve film based on a mass shooting at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. Villenueve's fictionalized account follows the killer (never named; played by actor Maxim Gaudette) and three students on the day of the massacre. The shooter was an incel-like anti-feminist who specifically targeted the female students.

POLYTECHNIQUE isn't a by the numbers school shooting account. It flits from the day of the shooting to flashbacks and even a flash-forward. It's a highly stylized, almost impressionistic presentation. The three principal students are two female roommates, Valerie (Karine Vanasee; very good) and Stephanie (Evelyne Brochu), and Valerie's male friend Jean-Francois (Sébastien Huberdea). They are fairly quickly introduced and sketched out before the main events play out.

Shooting on Black & White film gives it a stark look, but Pierre Gill's camera glides and slides along gracefully. It's composed in the very widescreen aspect ratio of 2:35 (as opposed to the standard 1:85). The combination of the movements and the elongated monochrome frame gives the whole film the added haunting dimension. The music (Benoît Charest) is similarly against type for a crime picture. Simple and plaintive.

Villenueve's treatment (he collaborated with two others on the script) isn't exploitative, but, it's still very difficult to watch at times. His almost matter of fact direction of the central sequence is shocking without showy montage. The most chilling shot is of the killer calmly reloading as his victims lie dead or dying.

It's a relief in a way that the film is only 77 minutes long, but, it also adds to the general intensity. Villenueve's next film, the brilliant Oscar Nominated INCENDIES, really put him on the map (leading to his Hollywood career (SICARIO, PRISONERS, BLADE RUNNER 2049), but POLYTECHNIQE is, in its own compressed way, a significant achievement of its own.

P.S. The French-Canadian production shot simultaneously in French and in English. I saw the English language version, but the dialogue is so relatively sparse, it doesn't appear as if seeing the Quebecois version would be much different.

An amazing little French Canadian film about the Quebec massacre. Personally I recommend watching everything Denis Villeneuve has made. This guy is among the greatest living directors in the world right now and he is definitely making some of the most interesting films of our time...Incendies, Prisoners, Arrival, etc. This is one of the films Denis made before he became well known. I've seen everything he's made now except for his newest version of Dune, which I'll check out in the theatre when it opens in October. Every single one of his films was well worth the watch! Forget the overhyped Fincher and Nolan of the newer generation of directors, this guy easily wipes the floor with them. In my view, Denis is definitely the most interesting filmmaker alive today that hasn't made anything prior to the mid 1990's. 7/10.

As a piece of cinema, this is truly a sight to behold. The filming is beautiful in its ability to tell the story of a horrific shooting in Montreal in 1989. The black and white filming and the direction remind of the "Dekalog" by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

The acting is exceptional. The performance by a young Karine Vanasse is powerful in its understated subtlety.

The story is deeply moving. This type of plot isn't for everyone, but if realistic drama is enjoyable to you, as it is to me, then you will be impressed by the quality of this movie.

It's heartbreaking that this actually happend. The characters, for the film, were fictionalised, but Polytechnique shows a glimpse of what those innocent young people would have gone through. And it's truly saddening.

Handled as delicately as possible as the subject matter dictates, Denis Villeneuve's film is a haunting, and a deeply moving account, of an event in close history, that should never have taken place.

Since I'm really really looking forward to seeing Dune in the future, I felt like checking out this early film from Denis Villeneuve's filmography. This movie's based on a real-life tragedy that occurred at the Polytechnique Montreal engineering school in 1989, and it dramatizes the event in a way that feels very humanistic. It doesn't make any comments or draw conclusions about the event and still leaves you feeling for most of the people involved. It does a great job of being ambiguous, something Villeneuve has mastered throughout his filmography. My heart goes out to the survivors, and my thanks go out to Villeneuve for being so great at making films like this.

In December 6, 1989, disgruntled 25-year-old student Marc Lépine shoot 28 people and then killed himself in École Polytechnique in Montreal. He aims his anger at feminists and blames his failures on them. This is a dramatized version of the true events. Maxim Gaudette plays the unnamed killer. Valérie (Karine Vanasse), Stéphanie (Evelyne Brochu) and Jean-François (Sébastien Huberdeau) are fellow mechanical engineering students and friends. The film follows these four characters before, during and after the incident.

Director Denis Villeneuve shots this in black and white. It gives a cold feel to the movie. I think the killer's writing is chilling but the minutia of the fellow students' lives are boring. The only exception is the interview for the internship. The black and white is quite effective during the shooting incident. There are a lot of comparison to Gus Van Sant's Elephant. The main difference for me is that this is a real incident. I almost never call for a strict reenactment but this needs that kind of detail. I would prefer that the 20 minutes shooting spree be recreated perfectly.

From the opening scene of students busy doing their copying in front of an array of copying machines, and the sudden disruption caused by a burst of gun fire, Polytechnique grabs the viewers by the collar and placed them right in the middle of this horrific event that took place in Montreal in 1989.

The film claimed to be a fictionalized account of the massacre, in which 14 women were killed and many others were wounded, and I don't know to what extent it adheres to facts. But that does not matter. As far as story telling goes Denis Villeneuves did it with skill and without fanfare. B/W images, and a restraint use of dialogue and music add to the mood of this film, which is not an uplifting experience by its very nature. Acting was good by the several male and female leads. Editing was excellent.

Overall, I look at this films as Canadian cinema at its best - despite the depressing nature of the subject matter.

Polytechnique is Denis Villeneuve' third feature film, for me this film does not compare to anything he has made since. It tells the story of the tragic ecole polytechnique massacre or the Montreal massacre, a mass shooting that took place at an engineering school affiliated with the university of montreal. The shooting was on the seventh of december 1989. 14 women were killed, 10 were injured and 4 men were also hurt. The killer, Marc Lepine had complained about women working non-traditional jobs for some time and claimed he was "fighting feminism" by murdering these young people. Lepine killed himself after killing as many women as he could. He wrote a suicide note that blamed feminists for ruining his life.

There are a lot of things I appreciate about this film. Having the film in black and white is a smart choice that worked well, the cinematography is also pretty great except, all the actors did a great job and the end to Jeff's story was tastefull and well executed.

Despite liking a lot of polytechnique I think it was overly preachy and conveyed the themes of feminism with little to no subtlety, for example the scene where Valerie is trying to get an internship. Conveying the themes and ideas is something Villeneuve has really improved on. I also feel like I should point out I am very pro-feminist and frankly I think it's disgusting that woman aren't treated the same as men.

The killers plan is stupid. I don't know how accurate the film is to the actual event, so I should rephrase. In the film the killers plan is stupid. If there was more than one guy (Jean) trying to help people who were injured the situation could have been better. Some students who were watching him reload his gun could have got up and tried to stop him then he would have no rounds in his gun, then it's one person against the entire university. The killer was also only one person, a group of people from behind could have knocked him down and taken his gun or beat him. All my criticisms here are about the film, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the horrific event.

Most of my complaints about polytechnique are pretty minor for most people but I find silly, careless mistakes hard to get over, especially when most of the film is presented carefully and pretty well. You should check this one out, it's not my thing but you might like it I don't know.

I hadn't planned on seeing this film but was invited by a friend. Thank yous came out of my mouth the moment we stepped out of the theater; the only words which managed to escape my rattled mind.

This is a film which I believe is a must see. Brutal and raw, it breaks a real story into a few basic elements and lets the events speak for themselves. The film depicts the sad events of this day in 1989 with such realism that the viewer feels himself part of the drama, a witness to the violence. Filmed in black and white, and with very similar stylistic elements to Gus Van Sant's Elephant, few words are needed for the director to properly convey the desired range of emotions which take place in the movie.

I must add that there were shots of such beauty which contrasted the ugliness of the shooting in such a moving way that while trying to old back tears at one point, I thought to myself "Life is a wonderful gift.." I have never written a review for this site before, and enjoy a great variety of films: I walked out of the silent, full theater, packed with viewers just as shell shocked as I, thinking that this might have been the most gut wrenching movie experience of my life.

Do see

I was put off by one of the very first things you see in this film, which is a statement in which the filmmakers hope to have their cake and eat it too. They claim it's "based on a true story" but they then disrespect the families by saying all characters have been fictionalized. It's the ultimate disrespect to profit (via cash or fame) on the misfortune of others, while not even telling their story. We all know that far fewer people would have chosen to see this movie if it was titled "Gately College" or something.

While I wasn't expecting a documentary, I was expecting something true to the facts. Now I'm left with the problem of figuring out whether anything in the film was true at all. Did we learn anything about the shooter? Did we learn anything about the victims? Did we learn anything about the responders? No.

Having said that, it did contain some of the most intense shooting scenes I've seen in a film, and for some reason I was also struck by the images of trees. But I was not impressed by the self-indulgent upside-down camera angles.

I think it probably is superior to Gus Van Sant's Elephant (Columbine) film, although it does follow in the same vein of being almost entirely devoid of content. If this is going to be the way that directors and writers depict traumatic mass murders, then they need to stop it.

A reenactment of the real-life tragedy in Canada, and not much more than that. I don't see how this movie served anything for the victims from the event. After a quick search online, I saw that there's a lot of controversy regarding the motive and aftermath. And yeah this movie didn't contribute anything to the conversation. The attempt to add some background to the characters didn't really do much for me.

No offense but, for only an hour and 15 minutes, this felt like a big stretch from a 30 minutes short film. The event was tragic but I was bored out of my mind in many scenes.

Overall, too dragged out. 5/10.

I've read many comments by people stating that this film is bias because it only reflects the point of view of the victims who were mainly female and that is just giving support to the feminist movement but that is not the case.

This film isn't about the shooter, it isn't about the families...it's about the victims/survivors of this horrific ordeal. It does not focus on the background of the killer, it does not explain in great detail why he committed this terrible act of violence... it depicts what the victims/survivors went through.

Some people tend to feel empathic for the shooter, commenting on the fact that he felt prosecuted for his gender and that he felt threatened and hatred for females who in his own opinion were taking jobs away from males who deserved them... Kind of like the two shooters from Columbine who to some people became a icon for anti-bullying, thinking that the only reason they committed these crimes was because they were prosecuted by their peers and the community. It doesn't change the fact that both the Columbine shooters and Marc Lepine took innocent lives and then so cowardly take their own.

Some people liken this movie to "Elephant" and I agree but it also reminds me of "April Showers" since both movies did not focus on the killer but on the people who suffered through the event.

"Valérie (Vanasse) is one of the fortunate survivors of the ordeal (does she suffers from the survivor's guilt?), and before that, she has a first taste of working-place sexism when she is interviewed for an internship, and her classmate Jean-François (Huberdeau) is also on the spot, being the stronger sex, he is spared by the killer with other males, but he seems to be the only one who shows some valor when all hell breaks loose. And after the fact, he is tormented by mounting guilt that he hadn't done more to prevent the mass killing (a typical messiah complex), whose ramifications are immeasurably grave, varying from individual to individual."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks.

Denis has got to be my favourite director so while I was waiting to go to the cinema to see dune I decided to search out for this film. This is the true story about a college shooting In 1989. Denis has a way of making you feel for the characters without knowing much about them and knowing what happens to some characters ( the story is told in the eyes of 3 people ) I gotta say it bought tears to my eyes. Such a tragic story told beautifully and obviously my heart goes out to all the victims and their families. Top marks for one of the greatest directors about.

One of the darkest and most tragic events in Canadian history was surely the 1989 "Montreal Massacre" in which a number of female engineering students in a Montreal college were shot and killed by a misogynistic, feminist-hating gunman. This movie is based on those events, although changing the identities of everyone in the movie to the extent that none of the characters were even named as far as I recall. The movie begins with a long recital of a letter by the gunman expressing his hatred of women, and it closes with a long recital of a letter by one of the victims (who survived) expressing how the shooting had impacted her. Between those closing narrations, the story might best be described as "minimal." There's very little dialogue of any kind between any of the characters. The movie focuses more on the reactions of the students as the gunman wanders through the building, shooting any women he encounters. It's shot in black and white, which gives a somewhat "eerie" feeling to this, and it is very suspenseful; the viewer certainly feels the sense of helplessness and chaos that must have been felt by the students. This movie is quite reminiscent of the American movie "Elephant," which was based on the Columbine shooting. I preferred "Elephant" - I thought it made better use of the school setting than this one did. I can't say that I was really keeping track, but I thought this movie also exaggerated the event a bit. The Montreal Massacre was bad enough as it was; in this far more women seemed to be shot than actually were shot in the event itself - although, as I said, I wasn't really keeping track. The best part of this movie is the suspense that's involved. One doesn't really learn anything about the Montreal Massacre. Marc Lepine (the name of the real shooter) was a misogynistic feminist- hater. We already knew that. So, perhaps one wonders what the purpose of this movie was. The opening captions say it was to honour the women killed, and their names did appear in a scroll at the movie's end, but I confess that I honestly didn't think it succeeded in that goal. It was a dramatic enough portrayal of a school-shooting, but it adds nothing to our understanding of the event. 7/10

It was scary. I felt like I was there witnessing the hateful act being committed and it scarred me. Viscerally tasteful and direct. It just gives you the events that took place. Pure hatred.

The movie starts off with a bang and if you don't know what this is about (like me when I watched this, I hadn't read anything about it), then you will be awed by this very strong beginning. While it's almost like a documentary, it is very strong and has very good natural performances!

It's not for the faint hearted and it will be a very intense and strange watching experience. You can't say that it will entertain you in the normal sense of that word, but it will be gripping and it will be a movie that you won't forget that easily. Whether you like it or not, it is grim and it is down and dirty.

Denis Villeneuve's Polytechnique is a plain sailing yet, formidably assembled (re)debut. It's fascinating to witness how the currently acclaimed mastermind (re)started his full-lengthed movie career with an indie that tackles school shootings and, astonishingly enough, the common ignorance towards feminism. Villeneuve's-nearly homestyled-like-black and white, flashback is-in excess-a promisingly persuading drama/thriller for those planning on careering in the film industry. (Verdict: C+)

On December 6, 1989, Marc Lepine wrapped his Ruger Mini-14 semi automatic rifle in a plastic garbage bag, filled the pockets of his coat with ammunition, and headed off to class at the Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, the engineering branch of the University of Montreal. By the time he was through, fourteen women lay dead, and another ten women and four men were in critical condition. Lepine culminated his misogynistic rampage and wretched existence with a bullet to his head, leaving behind a rambling three page letter railing against feminists who had turned society against him and ruined his life and everything good that had been created by man.

Even today the magnitude of the tragedy runs deep in Montreal's collective psyche, and its into this minefield that the film Polytechnique dares to tread, stirring strong sentiments from the public and critics alike for recounting an event whose wounds still live in the consciousness of victims families and survivors.

Filmed in stark black and white, and shot twice, once in French and again in English using the same cast, Director Denis Villeneuve imbues the film with an almost suffocating foreboding as a pallor of death hangs over the day like the snow that gently falls throughout. Rather than dwell on Lepine, he instead shifts the focus to two fictional students, Valérie (Karine Vanasse) and Jean-François (Sébastien Huberdeau), each bringing the perspective of their respective gender to the story.

By framing events through the lives of these two, Polytechnique packs a most powerful punch. With the exception of a bone chilling beginning, Lepine's murderous rampage virtually plays second fiddle to the story of Valérie and Jean-François, which is how Villeneuve wanted it. He studiously avoids dwelling on death, and shifts the film's emphasis to that of life, grappling with tragedy head on, and the aftermath of anguish that exploded that day like so many bullets from Lepine's gun.

This isn't some sensationalist gory ode to a mass murderer, but rather a memorial to the victims of that day. It's not that often you see that in a movie, which makes watching Polytechnique an act of remembrance, and a cause to reflect.

Though this felt very similar to Gus van Sant's Elephant at first, it starts to very much feel like its own thing from about the halfway point onwards. And even if there are some similarities, maybe there are only so many ways you can tackle such a heavy premise without running the risk of offending or appearing insensitive... or even glorifying people who shouldn't be glorified.

A person who commits a mass murder maybe can't be understood, and it's always a frustrating and hard to sit with fact when it comes to films like this, but that could just be how it is. These people have frustrations that spiral out of control in ways most thankfully can't understand or relate to, and then something snaps, and they lash out. Maybe that's all that can be known. And if a film tried too hard to make you understand, it would probably be wading into distasteful territory.

Anyway, I liked the eventual structural risks Polytechnique took. I wasn't as crazy about some of the unusual choices made when it came to the visuals, almost as though Denis Villeneuve was trying a bit too hard in some places, but most of the film looks good, with a simplicity that's sometimes striking. Simple is good here; some crazy camera shots I didn't like so much. The actor who played the shooter was also scarily good; his eyes just looked distant and he was terrifyingly cold.

Polytechnique's a hard watch and I don't think I'll ever watch it again, but it was quite good, and feels like a moderate success by Villeneuve's fairly high standards.

I wasn't terribly impressed by this movie, in fact at times I found it rather boring, especially the last 20 minutes which felt a bit pointless.

The first 40 minutes were alright though, even though I have no idea what the point was in filming it all in black & white (didn't know it was gonna be and the poster is slightly misleading as that is indeed in colour) it's set in 1987 after all not 1957, but I'm sure many think that that was a brilliant idea.

Anyway, lack of colours aside, yeah I wasn't terribly impressed with it, you don't get to know the characters much, or what made the killer actually snap (what made him hate feminists remains a mystery).

I mean I understand that maybe they didn't want to take too many liberties with the script, but maybe it would have worked better as a documentary instead. And then we'd get a little more insight as well.

The true story of which it's based is of course awful but that doesn't make the story anymore engaging, at least for me, certain others disagree and that's fine good for them.