REVIEW: Los nôtres [2021]

What are you hiding from me? It takes a village. That’s what close, tight-knit communities like Sainte-Adeline, Quebec say when asked about how they are able to confront and conquer tough circumstances. With that sense of togetherness, however, comes a cliquish sensibility of superiority. They survive because they have each other. They survive because they’re vigilant and always watching to see where and when their help is required to pick someone up. It’s how they got through a horrible construction site tragedy years prior that claimed too many friends and…

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TIFF19 REVIEW: Antigone [2019]

My heart says to help my brother. A lot of people die during Sophocles‘ Antigone. The death of Oedipus puts his sons Eteocles and Polynices on the throne, their deaths spark their titular sister to fight for the latter’s right to be buried, and her eventual suicide leads to more dead bodies as only a Greek tragedy could allow. While Canadian director Sophie Deraspe loosely adapts his play to tell her tale of North America’s immigration ills (through the specific lens of Montreal, Quebec), she leaves the killing behind. There’s…

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