As an independent journalist, Bob MacKenzie writes articles for a number of print and internet publications. The local and national scope of his articles for the Kingston Net Times, the Kingston Business Journal, and other publications make them of interest to readers not just in Kingston but across North America. This article is reprinted here for your information. All material included in this page is copyright © Bob MacKenzie, 1996. No reproduction for any reason is allowed without prior permission in writing from the author.

The article below was published on the internet in the Kingston Net Times.

Le Polygraphe

written by Robert Lepage and Marie Brassard

in collaboration with Michael MacKenzie and Patrick Goyette

directed by Robert Lepage

1996

97 minutes

Le Polygraphe manages to very comfortably straddle two worlds while leaving the viewer just a bit uncomfortable. This is an edgy little film set firmly in the cinema noir tradition but with none of the old fashioned feel that many such films tend to have.

Centred around a two year old unsolved murder in modern Quebec City, Le Polygraphe includes a sub-plot that reaches back to Berlin at the end of the cold war and follows the intricate interrelationships of a half dozen people.

There seems these days to be a propensity among critics to praise new Canadian films whether or not they are any good, simply because they are new and Canadian. In this case, the film deserves any praise it gets because it really is that well done.

It would be easy to compare this film to such contemporary french classics as Jean-Jacques Beineix' Diva or Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita, but in its style and in many of its themes it is related closer to Hollywood films of 50 years ago, films like The Blue Dahlia, the original version of Chandler's The Big Sleep, and Laura.

In real life -- or in badly written fiction -- one would very soon question the ways in which the lives of the characters in this story intersect and interrelate, but here has been created a world where such things happen. There is a believability created that draws the viewer into the lives of these characters and thus into their dark world.

In brief form, this is the story of Francois (Patrick Goyette), a young man who has for two years believed himself to be a suspect in the unsolved murder of his lover, Marie-Claire. His friend, and Marie Claire's best friend, Judith (Josee Deschenes), a film-maker, intends to make a movie about the murder, in which she will accuse a policeman of the crime.

Quite by coincidence, Francois' next door neighbor, Lucie (Marie Brassard), lands a job playing the role of Marie Claire in Judith's movie

Also by coincidence, Lucie begins to date one of the policemen who are investigating the murder, Christof (Peter Stormare), a pathologist who is also a refugee from Communist East Germany.

For Francois, the story has become complicated by the fact that, although his friend Claude (Maria de Medieros, most recently famous for her role in Pulp Fiction), a woman very much in love with him, has given him an alibi, an inconclusive polygraph test has left him with doubts about whether or not he actually did commit the murder.

A prominent Canadian artist, both as a director and actor as well as a writer of award winning plays, Robert Lepage brings his considerable talent to bear in creating this tautly drawn portrait of a small community of artists and policemen.

It helps that this picture was not as scantily funded as are many Canadian productions, probably largely as a result of Lepage's reputation.

Lepage has achieved international acclaim since 1985 for his skills as a playwright and director for the stage, with successful productions staged in London, Paris, Barcelona, New York and Tokyo. As an actor, Lepage has appeared in a number of movies, possibly most notably as Rene/Pontius Pilate in Denys Arcand's Jesus de Montreal. He also was Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre, in Ottawa for three years beginning in 1990.

With these and many more successes, accolades and international awards behind him, Lepage was able to raise a budget of $2.6 million in United States funds for this production. Most of this was financed by Telefilm Cabada, France's C.N.C. and Germany's Berlin-Brandenburg Film Board.

It is also gratifying to see that, rather than pretend his story was being played out somewhere in the United States or France, as so may Canadian film-makers do, Lepage made it patently clear that his locales were Quebec City and Montreal (with some brief excursions to Berlin).

Le Polygraphe is a tense psychological drama well worth seeing.