Cinema Canada (May 1980)

FILM REVIEWS close-ups of Manon’s face against monotone backgrounds, the Pieta of Michelle cradling her half-clad brother as he dozes in a drunken slumber, and the images of the earth, the water, the colours of the leaves: this is an austere, evolved, visual language exercised with complete control. That sense of control, in fact, extends to every aspect of the film, its passions and its scope rendering it universally accessible. But there is another, equally profound reflection here. That sense of self that Quebecers watching the film will experience is a very particular thing ; that amazing right to say : “This is where I live, these are the people and the elements and the seasons that I live with,” fills one with a heady kind of elation. It is an essential part of what motion pictures are all about, something rare enough in any part of the Canadian experience. Barbara Samuels Micheline Lanctot’s L’-homme a tout faire p.c. Corporation Image Ltee. (1979) p. René Malo exec.p. Jean-Claude Lord assoc.p. Ted Kotcheff s.d./sc./dial. Micheline Lanctét a.d. Pierre Gendron 2nd. a.d. Michéle Mercure cont. Thérése Bérubé p. assist. Francyne Morin p.sec. Suzanne Comtois p. account. Bérangére (Catou) Maltais d.o.p. André Gagnon focus Francois Gill lst assist. cam. Robert Guertin 2nd assist. cam. Daniel Vincelette ed. Annick de Bellefeuille, Diane Boucher (assist.) sd. Marcel Fraser boom Yvon Benoit sd. ed. Pierre Leroux, Jean-Pierre Cereghetti (assist), Louis Dupire (assist.) m. Francois Lanctét or. songs Gilles Vigneault mus. mix Louis Hone art.d. Normand Sarrazin art. assist. Daniel Champagne, Céline Mayrand props Pierre Fournier makeup Mickie Hamilton, Chantale Ethier hair Constant Natale cost. Henri Huet ward. Dominique L-Abbé p.sup. Jacques Normand, Jean Gauthier (assist) messenger Louis Gascon chief machinist Jean-Maurice de Ernsted machinist Denis Ménard chief electrician Claude Charron elect. Claude Brasseur stills Jean-Pierre Pelicano, Lise Labelle film titles Productions Ciné-Titres Enrg. op. eff. Les Films Transfocal Inc. l.p. Jocelyn Bérubé, Paul Dion, Andrée Pelletier, Gilles Renaud, Marcel Sabourin, Janette Bertrand, Danielle Schneider, Camille Bélanger, Roger Turcotte, Guy Thauvette, Louise Lambert, Martine Pratte, Pauline Lapointe, Martin Labrecque, Francis Labrecque, Madeleine Guérin, Louis Thompson, André Miron, Christiane Tessier, Véronique Vilbert, Denis Yukon Ménard col. 35mm run. time 99 min. pub. Thérése David Publicité distrib. Les Films René Malo Inc. Micheline Lanctét, who began her film career as an animator and turned to acting (La vraie nature de Bernadette, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and, more recently, Blood and Guts) has written and directed a feature film. L’homme 4 tout faire (The Handyman) is not a movie that takes critics and audiences by storm, but it is the kind of satisfying film fare that makes you want to see another film by Micheline Lanctét. When she was acting, Lanctdt had a natural buoyancy about her. (No director could contain it, though in at least one 34/May 1980 film, Ti-cul tougas, it alone was not enough to sustain faltering comedy.) Lhomme 4 tout faire, also has that quality of buoyant wit, but here it is more than a glimmer of personality. Lanctét is, we discover, a well-nurtured writer and director of comedy. The film is a simple retelling of the tale of a hopeful country boy’s journey to the metropolis. A difficult subject because it has already been done (in Canadian film, Goin’ Down the Road is considered a classic), Lanct6t is never self-conscious about that. In fact, the film succeeds at several points in distilling its small truths into that jolting first shot. Armand Dorion (Jocelyn Bérubé) is the type of man condemned to unhappiness as long as he is without a woman. When his wife and kids, by her former marriage, leave the unemployed carpenter, he decides to move to the city to look for work and another lover. In Montreal he falls for the first woman whose eye lingers over his country garb — a young girl who is ultimately uninterested in Armand’s design of the way things should be. His next find is older and married: Thérése (Andrée Pelletier) hires him to finish the basement of her suburban home. After what seems an interminable period of stepping around and over each other, they realize they are in love. A comedy of manners in the vein of Cousin Cousine, Lanctdt’s film is not as refined or enlivened with foibles as the former, which became a North American hit. Lhomme 4 tout faire won't go that far, though it is a pleasant relief from the befuddled comedy of cynicism that has so firmly rooted itself in our contemporary culture. Lanctdt has said the film is about marginals, but it isn’t really. For all their disappointments, her characters haven't dropped out of Quebec society and don’t intend to. Thérése is mainstream middle class. She falters, but she only really wants to get back to her husband through the hapless Armand. We suspect this during the scene when Thérése’s mother, played with much good grace and fun by Québec’s “star’ TV writer Janette Bertrand, discovers that her daughter is having an affair with the carpenter. There is a lengthy moment of silence before she breaks into peeling laughter, soon joined by her daughter. Armand, meanwhile, is Their eyes tell it all, as Manon (Danielle Schneider) puts the make on a receptive Armand (Jocelyn Bérubé) in L’-homme 8 tout faire