You?ll notice as TIFF rolls along I?m covering a number of French Canadian films.  Perhaps this has something to do with my last name:  Sauve.  There should actually be an accent on that E and pronounced ?Sau-vay?, not ?Suave?, or ?Suave-ay? as so many telemarketers and incredulous name readers have inquired hatefully over the years. 

I am of French stock but my only real connection to the culture were occasional visits to Memere and Pepere in the predominantly French-speaking Haleybury, Ontario.  Still I enjoy identifying as a French Canadian in the same way Jack Kerouac identified as French Canadian in his perfect stories of sad Lowell Massachussets.  Maybe that?s why I dig French movies so much, and French Canadian ones in particular. 

La Memoire Des Anges was a perfect way to go back in time and glimpse a past that is my past and also not my past.  Director Luc Bourdon's tribute to NFB films set in Montreal primarily between 1947 and 1967 compiles footage from early, lesser-known works by Gilles Carle, Claude Jutra, Michel Brault, Arthur Lipsett, Gilles Groulx and Denys Arcand.

I can only imagine the significance of Bourdon's collection of catholic iconography and brown slush; blizzards and nativity scenes; girls weeping for Paul Anka, to anyone who lived in Montreal during this period.

But for me, there?s something about the French face that is undeniably cinematic, one need only google images of Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot or Jean-Paul Belmondo if proof is required. 

But it?s the face of the old French Canadian man I?ll always love:  The face of Pepere?s dozen or more male siblings, the face of old Léo-Alcide Kerouac.  There is no shortage of those in this sometimes poignant, sometimes prescient, often humorous collection of images.  Bourdon also wisely allows his historic gaze to linger on Montreal?s chic, eye-pleasing women.

A beautiful film and a loving tribute to the fathers of French Canadian cinema.

----Some of the aforementioned French faces----