2021 in review: Denis Villeneuve’s Dune year dominated Quebec cinema

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It started with Popcorngate and ended on a desert planet.

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The tone was set early on for Quebec’s unusual year of movies, in an unusual year around the world, when the province found itself in the midst of a snack crisis in theaters.

The uproar started when Prime Minister François Legault announced that Quebec cinemas could reopen on February 26, after having been closed for nearly six months. The capture? No popcorn.

Guzzo Cinemas President and CEO Vincenzo Guzzo criticized the government, leading to a surprising compromise in which Legault offered to compensate theater owners for lost popcorn sales and allowed snacks in the orange zones.

It would be months before corn would appear freely in cinemas across the province, but that did not stop people from going to the movies.

And the pandemic didn’t stop Quebec heavyweight director Denis Villeneuve from releasing Dune, his epic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi novel, though it did set it back a year.

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Originally slated to hit theaters in the fall of 2020, Dune finally came out a year later, bringing the director the glory and major league acclaim that he had been racking up for the past decade.

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Villeneuve brings his signature slow-developing tension to the story of a young heir (Timothée Chalamet) who must travel to a desolate desert planet to oversee the extraction of his precious “spice,” but soon finds himself struggling to survive. The film is co-starring Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem.

By mid-December, Dune had raised nearly $ 400 million, earning Villeneuve the green light for a second installment (depending on the success of the first). It also garnered Golden Globe nominations for best picture (drama), best soundtrack and best director for Villeneuve, preparing the filmmaker for the Oscars.

Philippe Falardeau was on the starting line in the spring with his charming comedy-drama My Salinger Year. The film, starring American actress Margaret Qualley as an aspiring writer working for a major New York literary agent (Sigourney Weaver), opened the Berlin International Film Festival a year earlier.

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Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s visceral coming-of-age drama La Déesse des mouches à feu also screened in Berlin in 2020, and was a hit in Quebec theaters when it premiered that fall. The movie was stuck in limbo when theaters closed, but picked up where it left off once things reopened.

Hygiène sociale by Berliner Denis Côté screened at the festival in March this year, and was named best director in the Experimental Encounters category. The film opened in Quebec theaters in May. Filled with absurd humor and surreal dialogue shouted by socially estranged actors in the fields, the film shot by the pandemic has nothing to do with the pandemic, according to the director, which did not prevent it from being a perfect film for the pandemic. .

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The très-indie comedy drama Première vague was Quebec’s first film about the pandemic explicitly. The first feature film produced by the short film collective Kino Montréal, the film weaves together four stories, each supervised by a different director. Though rough on the edges, he reviewed the early days of the pandemic with an endearing mix of humor and pathos.

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Beans, the first feature from Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer, hit theaters in early July, reminiscent of a long, hot summer 31 years earlier. The semi-autobiographical drama tells the story of the Oka crisis through the eyes of a young indigenous woman who finds her place in the world. The film won Best Picture and Best First Feature at the Canadian Screen Awards in May, two months after winning the Berlin International Film Festival’s Crystal Bear for Best Picture in the youth-oriented generation Kplus section.

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I wonder that Xavier Dolan didn’t come out any movies this year, but he kept busy nonetheless. The filmmaker made Julia Roberts giggle and work her way through a Chopard ad he directed in April, and hung out (again) with Adele in Eastern Townships, where they shot the black-and-white video of the track. Return of global superstar Easy on Yo, which has been viewed 200 million times since its October premiere.

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Sébastien Pilote’s period piece Maria Chapdelaine was the surprise hit of the fall in Quebec. The latest adaptation of Louis Hémon’s classic novel grossed nearly $ 1 million at the box office, wowing viewers with its witty depiction of a young woman making her way into rural Quebec society in the early 1900s.

Another pleasant surprise was Les oiseaux ivres by Ivan Grbovic. Co-written with Grbovic’s partner, cinematographer Sara Mishara, the film follows the odyssey of a Mexican migrant worker who comes to Montreal in search of a better life and the woman he loves. Les oiseaux ivres was selected as Canada’s entry in the Oscar category for Best International Feature Film for the 2022 Academy Awards.

Speaking of international feature films, Quebecers get bragging rights about a couple of movies from abroad. Montrealer Yanick Létourneau’s Périphéria Films co-produced Franco-Ivorian filmmaker Philippe Lacôte’s magic-realistic prison drama Night of the Kings. The film filmed in the Ivory Coast was shortlisted for the best international feature film category at the Oscar, although it failed to achieve a nomination for the 2021 awards.

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And Jane Campion’s gripping Netflix drama The Power of the Dog would never have seen the light of a screen without the consent of Quebec producer Roger Frappier, who acquired and retained the film rights to Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel for four years before Campion arrived.

“After more than 40 years working in productions, this was a real gift,” Frappier said of the experience.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee star in the tense cowboy psychodrama, which is reinforced by a poignant score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. The Power of the Dog premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, where Campion was named best director. He has also garnered seven Golden Globe nominations, including Best Actor (Cumberbatch), Best Supporting Actress (Dunst), and Best Supporting Actor (Smit-McPhee), as well as Best Picture (Drama), Best Soundtrack, and Best Director. which should give Villeneuve a run for his money.

Fire up the popcorn for awards season.

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